Australia is doubling down on efforts to attract Japanese tourists and rekindle their interest in gourmet food and wine, as exporters try to diversify away from China.
Japanese business leaders, politicians, celebrities and newspaper editors were among the hundreds of VIPs being wined and dined beneath the cherry blossoms in the Australian embassy’s sprawling gardens in Tokyo on Tuesday.As beef and lamb sizzled on the barbie and a celebrity sushi chef sliced into an enormous Southern bluefin tuna from Port Lincoln, guests from a country that has the fussiest consumers in the world “oohed and aahed” over wines and gourmet produce from every Australian state.
“It makes no sense to over-rely on one market and although Japan is not fast-growing, there is a lot of spending power here and a lot of capital here. It is a discerning market for food and wine.”Australia’s focus on Japan is being driven by both economics and geopolitics. Exporters are now looking to diversify away from China, a market some of them abandoned Japan for two decades ago.
Japanese tourists have not yet returned in droves to Australia, but the capital is pouring in, largely thanks to huge investments in Australian green energy sources such as hydrogen. Last year, Japan ranked second, behind only the US, as the source of foreign direct investment into Australia, at $133.8 billion, a report released this week showed.
Australian exporters flogging products to Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, say they are also relying on that trust in the country’s image in Japan. There were a record number of Australian exhibitors at a big Japanese food expo last month.“Japan is our largest market by far, and it has been right throughout the pandemic.
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