ARCHIVED The Japan-UK Free Trade Agreement -what does it mean? with Hiroshi Matsuura and Minako Morita-Jaeger
Date
Tuesday 8 December 2020
Time
12.00 noon – 1.00pm (GMT)
9.00pm (JST)
Check the time in your location
Booking Details
Free – Donations Welcome
Registration essential
The activities of the Japan Society are made possible thanks to the support of its members. This event is free of charge and open to all. We realise that this is a difficult time for many people. However, if you are planning to attend and do not have a membership subscription as an individual or through your employer, please consider making a donation. You can find details of membership and how to join the Japan Society community here.
The UK’s first post-Brexit trade deal with a major economy is the Japan-UK Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement on which an agreement in principle was reached in September, and is expected to take effect from 1 January 2021. To discuss what the deal will mean in practice, Japan Society Chairman Bill Emmott is joined by two experts: Hiroshi Matsuura, the Chief Negotiator for Japan, newly arrived in London to take up the post of Deputy Chief of Mission at the Embassy of Japan and Minako Morita-Jaeger, international trade policy consultant and fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory at the University of Sussex.
The deal was welcomed by both governments as well as Japanese and British business as providing continuity and opportunity post Brexit. Details in the UK Government’s impact assessment suggest that the deal’s macro-economic impact will not surprisingly be modest, but for specific sectors and businesses the deal could nevertheless be significant. Join us to discuss what the UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement will mean in practice. What are the most important elements of the deal, how does it differ from the EU-Japan EPA, and how might UK-Japan trade now be affected by the UK-EU trade negotiations?
Hiroshi Matsuura is Japan’s Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary in the United Kingdom. Prior to this he served as Chief Negotiator for Japan on the UK Japan Free Trade Agreement in his role as Deputy Assistant Minister, Deputy Director-General for Economic Affairs and Ambassador for Economic Diplomacy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has had a distinguished career with the Ministry, including terms as Minister at the Embassy of Japan in Malaysia (2012-14) and the United Kingdom (2014–17); Director, Global Issues Cooperation Division (2010–12) and Director, International Economy Division (2009–10).
Dr Minako Morita-Jaeger is a Fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory, Associate Fellow of the University of Sussex Business School and a Trade Policy Consultant. Prior to her research work, she worked in international trade policy for 15 years as an economic affairs officer at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in Geneva; a WTO trade negotiator at the Japanese Delegation to the international organisation in Geneva; and a principal trade policy analyst at the Keidanren (Japan Business Federation) in Tokyo. Her areas of expertise include: FTAs; WTO; trade policy of Japan; Europe-Asia trade relations: trade and investment, regulatory cooperation; and services trade. She holds a Ph.D in International Political Economy from the London School of Economics, an MA in European Economic Studies from the College of Europe in Belgium, an MA in International Law and Economics from the World Trade Institute in Switzerland, and a BA in economics from the Keio University in Japan.
Explore our series of webinars with leading experts in politics, economy and media. More details on upcoming events and past webinar videos HERE.