After a fairly long break, a club evening was held on Thursday 13 March at the Moomin Bakery & Café in Tokyo Dome City La Qua, Korakuen. This was the second time to have the club evening at this venue, the previous time was in January 2005.

The 45 members and guests could enjoy Finnish style food, including fresh Finnish bread from their own bakery and mingle with old and new friends in a informal atmosphere.

For more images from the club evening, click here

Mr. Yoshinori Sano, FCCJ Board Member, CPA and LTA and Managing Partner at Azabu Tax Corporation gave valuable insights in the Japanese taxation, and some good tips at the FCCJ tax seminar held on Wednesday, 20 February at Stora Enso Japan.

At the seminar, attended by 16 members, Mr. Sano handled issues related both to individual as well as corporate taxation.
His presentation was based on a lot of experience and examples from working with Finnish and other foreign affiliated companies and individuals. He also handled many tricky and detailed questions from the participants with great ability.

At our first luncheon meeting in 2008, held on Tuesday the 22th of January, we had a prominent speaker from Finland, Dr. Vesa Vihriälä, State Under-Secretary, Economic Affairs, Secretariat of the Economic Council. Dr. Vihriälä spoke about "Finland's growth policy in the age of globalisation".

In his presentation Dr. Vihriälä first gave an overview of the long perspective of Finnish growth policy, where education, R&D, and innovation moved into the centre stage.

He then moved on to the triple challenges for Finland: globalisation, ageing, and climate change and Dr Vihriälä pointed out that there is a need for further reform in Finland to meet these challenges.

For more about the meeting, attended by 28 members and guests, click here