CEATEC 2009 was held on October 6-10 at Makuhari Messe, Chiba prefecture. Although there were as many as 200,000 participants in the previous year’s event, this year a typhoon hit the Chiba area and some of those events were forced to close on October 8.

Aside from Japanese companies, many foreign companies also participated in CEATEC to look for business opportunities in Japan. On October 7, there was a reception sponsored by JETRO and Chiba Prefecture for these foreign companies. Although it was held early in the morning, 30 business men from 25 different companies were able to participate.

As the reception’s main speaker, a representative from ASJ, Inc. gave a speech titled “Difficulty & Attractiveness of the Japanese Market”. It gave an insights on the nature of Japanese market as well as the drastic change in the IT Industries which ASJ had encountered from the time it was set up 2006. The speaker also gave a detailed history of strategic change of ASJ, which the participants found quite interesting. A lot of interest was expressed when ASJ introduced its activities, which focused on partnership between Japan and the Philippines to help Japanese companies to expand business in APAC.