North Carolina to welcome Japanese PM this week with BBQ, bluegrass and a Toyota tour

Gov. Roy Cooper is rolling out the red carpet for Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida this week as the state and nation look to build on economic ties that include Toyota, Fujifilm and a growing list of other jobs projects.

“The State is working to put its best foot forward for the visit,” Cooper’s office announced Tuesday, two days before Kishida is scheduled to land at Raleigh-Durham International Airport. The Prime Minister will be flying in from Washington, D.C., where the White House is holding a state dinner for his U.S. trip.

Cooper, who plans to attend the White House dinner, will host Kishida during his visit to the Tar Heel State.

“This will be a historic trip for a sitting head-of-state to visit North Carolina and emphasizes the deep relationship between the state and Japan,” Cooper’s office said.

On Friday, Cooper and Kishida will tour the Toyota battery plant being built outside Greensboro, a massive operation the Japanese company pledges will eventually cost close to $14 billion and employ 5,000 workers. Cooper and Kishida then plan to go into Guilford County to see the expanding HondaJet facility, which last summer received a $3.43 million incentive state grant.

Following these site visits, Kishida will return to Raleigh for a luncheon at the North Carolina Executive Mansion. The menu will be prepared by local James Beard Award-winning chef Ashley Christensen while Raleigh’s Sam Jones BBQ will provide lunch for the rest of the Japanese delegation and media. The North Carolina bluegrass band Unspoken Tradition will perform during the lunch.

The same day, North Carolina first lady Kristin Cooper will accompany Kishida’s wife, Yuko, for “a traditional Japanese tea at Sarah P. Duke Gardens in Durham,” Cooper’s office announced. The two women will also tour the North Carolina Museum of Science to see a Japanese Friendship Doll that has been displayed in the state since the 1920s.

This week, the governor signed a proclamation marking April 12 “North Carolina and Japan Friendship Day.” And on Wednesday, he told The News & Observer in a phone interview that the state could announce a jobs-creation project ahead of the Prime Minister’s visit.

“I’ll just say right now we’re looking forward to announcing some new jobs for North Carolina,” he said, without revealing additional details. “And we’ll talk a little bit about that tomorrow.”

Japan’s manufacturing love affair with NC

The relationship between Japan and North Carolina stretches back to 1978 when the state opened an economic development office in the East Asian country. Two decades later, Japan trailed only the United Kingdom and Germany among foreign countries with the most companies in the state.

This trend hasn’t abated. From 2018 to 2022, Japanese businesses committed more than $6.6 billion and more than 5,100 jobs in North Carolina, according to the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina. In October, Cooper led a state delegation to the Southeastern United States/Japan Economic Development Conference in Tokyo. This year’s conference will be held in Charlotte.

Most of the recent Japanese jobs announcements have been in manufacturing.

In 2021, Toyota announced plans to build a major battery manufacturing factory south of Greensboro in Randolph County. The following year, Fujifilm Diosynth said it will open another Triangle-area manufacturing site, adding to its current facility in Morrisville and its incoming Holly Springs plant. In November, the Japanese company Dai Nippon Printing pledged to create 352 jobs at a new lithium-ion battery plant northeast of Charlotte while the biotech manufacturer Kyowa Kirin said it would bring 100 jobs to a new facility in Sanford.

“In the Manufacturing sector, operation cost and logistics cost are very important,” Hiroyuki Akiyama, the chief executive director of the Japan External Trade Organization office in Atlanta, said in an email. “Most Southeastern states have such advantages as taxation, utilities, interstate, airport and seaport. Many of the states rank top 10 in population growth and some states, like North Carolina, have highly educated workforce and startup ecosystems.

Akiyama said three Biden administration policies — the Infrastructure bill, Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS Act, have encouraged Japanese companies to grow in the U.S. market. Japan’s record low birthrate may also inspire domestic companies to expand abroad.

“The size of Japanese domestic market is forecast to gradually decline because of declining population,” Akiyama said. “This factor tends to make Japanese companies seek the opportunities to seek expanding their business overseas in order to keep their profit.”