Trust Before Trade: Japan Month 2026's India-Japan Business Session

As part of Japan Month 2026, justbGlobal (India) partnered with Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC) India and IndiaSoft Expo (Bharat Tech), supported by the Indo-Japan Chamber of Commerce (IJCC), with media partner Japan Calling, to host a India-Japan Business Session at the India Habitat Centre titled "Trade & Investment Opportunities in Japan: Leveraging the 2026 Indo-Japan Economic Security Agreement." The room brought together government officials, corporate practitioners, and cross-border advisors — a useful cross-section for anyone tracking how economic security is beginning to shape the conversation around business, investment and economic resilience. What follows connects the published agenda to the actual topics discussed in the room.

Two Perspectives on the India-Japan Partnership

Juhi Naithani, Partner at justbGlobal, opened proceedings before handing over to two keynote speakers addressing the relationship from either side of the table.

Daisaku Yukita, Chief Director General of JETRO Delhi, joined virtually and framed his remarks around Prime Minister Takaichi's recent visit and what he called a shift toward "complementary relations" - moving the India-Japan economic relationship from dialogue toward co-creation and the generation of new value, rather than a simple buyer-seller dynamic.

He then laid out five reasons the Japanese economy itself is worth Indian businesses' attention right now:

1. Trust in the market and its scale — Japan's own market credibility and scale as a destination, not just a source of capital.

2. An innovation ecosystem — described as mission-oriented, built around solving social challenges rather than pure commercial optimisation.

3. People — a highly skilled workforce and the professional talent pipeline as a genuine draw for investors.

4. Business environment and infrastructure — including reference to newer digital infrastructure build-outs within Japan.

5. Quality of life — he pointed to roughly 70 international schools and the training of healthcare workers in foreign languages, aimed at better delivery and understanding of care for the expatriate community, as concrete, liveability-level draws. His underlying point: business settlement is hardly ever just about business — the people relocating and their families need a life to settle into, not just an office to work from.

   
   

A closing point tying back to Japan's own domestic growth push — he referenced the Takaichi government's newly unveiled Growth Strategy: over ¥370 trillion in combined public-private investment through fiscal 2040, spanning 17 sectors broken down into 62 specific products and technologies, with ¥102 trillion of that earmarked for AI and semiconductors alone. His point was that this scale of state-backed industrial investment is itself a reason for Indian businesses to engage with Japan now, while the framework is being built out rather than after it has matured.

Manish Chadha, Joint Secretary, Department of Commerce, Government of India, followed with the Indian government's framing: the Joint Declaration on Economic Security Cooperation, Minister Piyush Goyal's recent visit, and a call to move "beyond dialogue." He cited India's position as Japan's fifth-largest FDI destination, and backed the broader trajectory with numbers — India's total goods trade with Japan has grown at roughly a 12% CAGR over the past five years, from $15.36 billion in FY2020-21 to $27.47 billion in FY2025-26. Throughout, he framed India as a long-term partner for Japan rather than a short-cycle one and he described India as a market of "co-creators".

The Joint Declaration itself gives that "beyond dialogue" framing a more concrete structure. India and Japan identify five priority areas for project-based collaboration and public-private partnerships: semiconductors, critical minerals, information and communication technology, clean energy and pharmaceuticals. The declaration also calls for deeper institutionalisation through the Economic Security Dialogue, a Track 1.5 dialogue involving government, industry and domain experts and a follow-up mechanism to advance a shared list of ongoing projects.

This is significant because the document frames economic security as an area for active industrial and technological cooperation and not simply as a defensive response to disruption. Both sides express concern over economic coercion and non-market policies and practices, particularly where these can disrupt critical-mineral and industrial supply chains, while simultaneously committing to build resilient and reliable supply chains among like-minded partners.

The Japan Update

Gurmeet Singh, CEO and Executive Director of ESC, delivered the "Japan Update" segment, and structured it around three questions. Firstly, Why Japan? Because, in his words, it rewards patience with loyalty, offers better margins and values you as a human being and not just the product. What are the dos and don'ts? Learn the language. Adopt the culture. And never cut corners on quality. Why is this relevant for the electronics sector specifically? His answer was capital, precision, and talent — the combination that makes electronics a genuinely high-relevance sector for India-Japan cooperation right now, in his view.

As part of Union Minister Piyush Goyal's delegation of 200-plus Indian companies that travelled to Japan just days before this session, Singh’s remarks carried a current, first-hand edge rather than a general briefing. When asked about what stayed with him most from that trip, he answered that it was a visit to a manufacturing floor — the punctuality and disciplined, organised rhythm of the assembly line left the deeper impression on him.

The Panel Discussion: Doing Business Across India & Japan

Officially, the panel comprised:

• Himanshu Srivastava, Practice Head, Japan, Baker Tilly ASA

• Takeshi Shinohara, Managing Director, Osaka Gas India Private Limited

• Tarun Jain, Senior Business Director, Suntory Beverage & Food

• Giri S.N., Co-Founder & CEO, Nichi-In Software Solutions (joining virtually)

• Yu Ninomiya, Managing Director & CEO, Seino MLL Logistics

  
  

Moderated by Juhi Naithani, the discussion moved fluidly between structural, historical and sector-specific ground. On structure, the panel repeatedly returned to how differently decisions are made and managed on either side. The consensus was to never directly compare the two ways of doing business as though one is a variant of the other - they run on different logics, each with its own strengths and treating them as interchangeable is where partnerships tend to go wrong. That structural point had a historical anchor too.

Himanshu Srivastava, who heads the Japan practice at Baker Tilly ASA, brought an advisory perspective to the discussion, touching on tax structuring and the importance of understanding the government and institutional ecosystem in cross-border business. He also addressed the broader geopolitical context, including the role of China in shaping India-Japan relations. His remarks underscored that successful cross-border engagement requires businesses to navigate not only commercial opportunities, but also the institutional and strategic environment around them. Tarun Jain situated the relationship's current momentum in the Shinzo Abe era, describing it as the base on which today's stronger ties were built and calling the present time the "golden era" of India-Japan relations. He also highlighted the practical side of market entry, including category-specific regulatory requirements, legal conditionalities and taxation. Pointing to Maruti Suzuki as an example, he illustrated the scale and depth of Japanese corporate presence in India.

Regulatory friction was also discussed, with Giri S.N flagging the withholding tax as a persistent and underappreciated issue for cross-border deals, citing a comparison between Japan-China and India-Japan arrangements: 0% in the former, against 10% for India-Japan once certain conditions are met — and as high as 20% if those conditions are not satisfied.” Culture came up in more operational terms from Takeshi Shinohara, who spoke to what it actually looks like to run Osaka Gas India as a traditional Japanese company and where the cultural gap between India and Japan shows up day to day, beyond the usual language and etiquette talking points.

The panel also brought into focus Global Capability Centres (GCCs) as an emerging entry model specifically for SMEs - one likely to see more traction as mid-sized firms on both sides look to engage without the overhead of a full local subsidiary. Yu Ninomiya brought the logistics lens, highlighting supply-chain resilience and management philosophies as an underrated variable in partnership success. The panellists named telecom, including a specific reference to Rakuten's approach to India, semiconductors and hardware, and AI/digital partnerships as sectors to watch. The discussion also highlighted the growing role of subnational cooperation, with stronger links between Japanese prefectures and Indian states emerging as an increasingly important channel for deepening India-Japan ties. The panel's closing formula for what makes any of this durable was three words: long-term vision, patience and trust - not just capital.

The Interactive Session: Japanese Business Culture

Following the audience Q&A, Ruchi Naithani (Partner, justbGlobal) and Yu Ninomiya returned for the "Japanese Business Culture" segment. It opened with an interactive quiz — making the session noticeably more informative and engaging. Two concepts anchored the discussion as the most important takeaways: naniwabushi, used as a reference point for a particular Japanese narrative or persuasion style relevant to relationship-building in business, and shinrai — trust — presented as central to how business relationships are built.

The session also highlighted how easily differences in business culture can become differences in interpretation. Behaviour intended in Japan as careful, detailed or consensus-driven may be read by an Indian counterpart as slow, bureaucratic or indecisive. The point was not that one reading is right and the other wrong, but that understanding the intention behind the behaviour can prevent cultural differences from becoming unnecessary friction.

For Indian companies considering Japan, the practical advice was equally clear: prepare carefully, pay attention to detail, allow time for consensus, demonstrate long-term commitment and think beyond a single transaction. The session's broader message was that successful engagement requires understanding not only what the other side does, but why it does it. This becomes especially important when businesses from both countries navigate a third-country market together, rather than operating directly in each other's home markets.

The Thread Running Through the Day

The day's speakers approached the India-Japan relationship from different angles, but a common thread ran through their remarks: moving from dialogue towards co-creation requires long-term vision, patience and relationships that endure.

The Joint Declaration provides the economic-security framework. Its significance will depend on whether its priorities translate into projects, resilient supply chains and sustained business partnerships. Sessions like this help bridge that gap, bringing policy closer to the businesses expected to act on it. The declaration sets the direction. It is trust before deals, patience before margins, and cultural understanding before assumptions — what it takes to keep a relationship of this depth functioning at the level its designation promises: a “Special Strategic and Global Partnership”.

Going forward, more such conversations, with greater continuity, could help businesses on both sides better understand each other's regulatory, taxation, management and decision-making environments. More cross-cultural practitioners, sector-specific discussions and greater familiarity with each other's languages and ways of working can help create a more balanced understanding of where the two business cultures meet. Economic-security cooperation and deeper commercial ties need to develop in tandem. Formal frameworks can create the space; mutual understanding can help turn it into lasting cooperation.

About the Author

Kaveri Jain is a doctoral researcher in International Relations at the Amity Institute of International Studies, Amity University, Noida. Her work focuses on India-Japan relations during the Shinzo Abe era. She has presented at academic conferences, published in peer-reviewed platforms and written on various aspects of India-Japan ties, including foreign policy, technology cooperation, cultural exchange, diaspora diplomacy and engagement in the Indo-Pacific region.