The Chamber celebrated its 50th anniversary in the company of esteemed guests of the Ireland-Japan business community at the 2023 Ireland Japan Business Awards in the Conrad Tokyo on Wednesday 22nd November.

Each year the Ireland Japan Chamber of Commerce have the honour of celebrating key companies and individuals for their outstanding contributions to Ireland-Japan business relations. 

Historically, the IJCC has presented award certificates to each awardee in their category. In honour of our 50th anniversary, the IJCC were delighted to present engraved trophies to each awardee for this year's business awards. Many thanks to imageMILL for their generous sponsorship and for the brilliant trophy design.

The IDA Ireland Foreign Direct Investment Award was one of 5 award categories presented this year.

The awardee for this category is recognised for their significant investment in Ireland.

On behalf of the Chamber, we are delighted to announce that the Ireland Japan Business Awards 2023 IDA Ireland Foreign Direct Investment Award was awarded to NEC Corporation.

MC Kenneth Mori McElwain invited Robert Nestor, Marketing Executive of IDA Ireland, to take to the stage to introduce the award and announce the award winner.

NEC invested in Ireland through the acquisition of Aspire Technologies in 2022 as part of the company’s strategy to expand global solutions delivery capacity for their industry leading Open RAN 5G applications. Since then they have continued their investment into Ireland, including a multi-year R&D project which will embed a significant upscaling of Talent, Capability and Technology of their operations in Ireland.

Foreign Direct Investment Award (sponsored by IDA Ireland)

NEC Corporation (https://www.nec.com/)

Mr. Hideyuki Ogata, General Manager, Global 5G Business Division, Chairperson of the Board of Directors of NEC Aspire Technology Limited, received the award on behalf of NEC Corporation and gave a few remarks on being awarded the Foreign Direct Investment Award sponsored by IDA Ireland.

Mr. Hideyuki Ogata, pictured with Robert Nestor, Marketing Executive of IDA Ireland Japan, alongside IJCC President Yoshihiro Tsuchiya, Embassy of Ireland Economic Counsellor Rory Conaty, Deputy Head of Mission Catherine O'Donovan and Agriculture Attaché Eoghan Murphy, with the IDA Ireland Foreign Direct Investment award.

Comment by Mr. Hideyuki Ogata, General Manager, Global 5G Business Division, Chairperson of the Board of Directors of NEC Aspire Technology Limited:

“We are deeply delighted to have received the Ireland Japan Business Award from the IJCC. NEC and Dublin based Aspire technologies have been strengthening our relationship and creating synergies to develop further telecommunication business and contribute to society. NEC would like to take this opportunity to thank our business partners and anyone else for all the supports on our global business expansion and building a stronger bridge between Japan and Ireland.”

NEC Open Network https://www.linkedin.com/company/nec-open-networks

Aspire technology https://www.linkedin.com/company/aspire-technology-limited/

Go raibh míle maith agat to all the awardees from the 2023 Ireland Japan Business Awards. We were privileged to honour such incredible achievements from the Ireland-Japan community on our stage and we know both Ireland and Japan will only go from strength to strength in 2024 and beyond.