Buoyed by the soaring yen, Japanese businesses have also been put off the United Kingdom as a hub of their operations by Britain’s decision not to join the euro. A further black mark has been the sense of the UK’s “geographical isolation” from the rest of the continent.
Top of the list of reasons for firms’ departure for Germany is transport links in the south-east. Businesses in Japan assume that trains and planes will arrive on time, be clean and not prohibitively expensive, and first-time visitors are shocked to find that the same does not hold true in London.
Tomohisa Asano, a spokesman for Macnica, which has moved its European headquarters from London to Munich, said: “I used to live in Bournemouth 20 years ago and things were very different then.
“London is very expensive now, the Tube is convenient but often dirty and it can also be dangerous. We also had concerns about increasing crime.”
Similar fears were echoed by Yoshizumi Naitoh, of pharmaceutical company Maruho Co, which initially set up its operations in London but has now moved its business base to Düsseldorf.
“We saw that other companies were making the same decision and looked at our own business again,” said Mr Naitoh.
“The prime reason was because we needed easier access to our other markets in Europe, but also we wanted better security and were attracted by lower crime rates in Germany.”
Many companies are setting up in Düsseldorf, where 168 companies are members of the Japanese Business Association, or Frankfurt because of its good access to markets across Europe. Also the home of the European Central Bank, some 210 Japanese companies – including Honda, Mitsubishi, Suzuki and Canon – are now operating in the Frankfurt area, which is home to more than 4,000 Japanese nationals.
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Jeana Shoji, a spokeswoman for Panasonic, said: “In October 2006, our PR team covering Europe was moved to Wiesbaden.
“Geographically the UK is isolated from the rest of Europe and we wanted to improve our communications within the region, including Britain.”
Hamburg is increasingly catering to ship logistics firms, Berlin is attracting companies closely connected with politics, while nowhere has seen faster growth in Japanese industries and companies of late – especially when it comes to IT – than Munich.
“We think it’s easier to live here than in London,” said Hartmut Schwesinger, CEO of FrankfurtRheinMain investment agency. “The general problem [there] seems to be the infrastructure, whether it’s too much traffic or the underground being unreliable and trains not running. That doesn’t happen here.”
High costs have also been a key reason for the shift – both in terms of renting office space and the high housing and personal costs of south-east England for expatriate Japanese employees.
“London is extremely expensive, we all know that,” said Eva Henkel, spokesperson for Investment Germany. “And if you are rearranging your company and business plan, then other locations may be more suitable. When it comes to renting office space and other real estate, the costs are so much less in Germany.”
Other Japanese companies that have opted to set up their European headquarters in Germany include IHI Charging Systems, now based in the Thuringian city of Arnstadt, and Casio Computer Co, which is presently constructing its new European office at Norderstedt, near Hamburg’s airport.