German Business Group in Japan

Japan is Germany's most important trading partner in Asia after China. Due to the fact that the domestic market of Japan is the third largest in the world, Japan plays a decisive role for Germany as an exporting nation. The main export goods of German enterprises to Japan are chemical products, automobile and automotive body parts, and machines. The new Economic Partnership Agreement between the EU and Japan is expected to increase these trade relationships further.

There is a close cooperation between the highly experienced teams in Japan and in Germany. The German Business Group in Japan offers multilingual services in all PwC service lines.

Assurance

Our team will provide you with assurance services for financial statements, internal controls, or sustainability reporting. In addition, we offer advice on accounting issues, control environment, risk management, and compliance topics. In particular risk management and compliance are becoming increasingly important for Japanese companies, including the subsidiaries of international groups. We offer you advice on new developments in these areas and support you in setting up state of the art risk management systems that fit your company’s needs.

Tax

Our tax team will support you on Japanese issues and any cross-border activities that you might encounter in your ongoing business activities, such as classical support in corporate income taxation in either country, but also extending to wage tax and personal income tax support for seconded employees; support in double taxation treaty application; advice in the structuring of supplies and import activities; or advice in the structuring of acquisitions, mergers, or other restructurings.

Our goal is to provide you our tax services through a single point of contact for all your needs, and leave the coordination up to us. As such, we aim to ensure that any advice or tax structuring presented to you always considers all countries involved across each step: from a tax, legal, and accounting perspective.

Transfer Pricing is an area that became increasingly important in recent years, and it is important to implement the right system and documentation to conform to the newly implemented regulations.

Legal

Our legal team will help you navigate the differences between the German and Japanese jurisdictions, as well as support you overcoming the language obstacles that are inherent to drafting contracts and agreements. We will provide you with services in the areas of corporate and labor law, commercial registrations, as well as preparation and review of agreements or internal regulations.

We will also guide you through the process of establishing a foothold for your business in Japan, either by setting up and registering a branch or by incorporating a new subsidiary.

Deal Advisory

PwC is supporting clients in three areas related to deals services: M&A, business restructuring, and infrastructure services. Successful enhancement of corporate value through deal advisory requires multi-faceted measures. The PwC deal advisory team offers professional services through our connected global network of industry experienced deal advisors added by data-driven insights that help to support more confident decisions. Our global network also enables leverage of other business experts in tax, legal, consulting, and audit & assurance services.

Consulting

Our Japan consulting team offers you a full range of consulting services supported by a deep understanding of the needs of German companies working in Japan. Areas PwC will support include market entry research and strategy development, risk and regulatory management, finance transformation, supply chain management, human resource management, business process optimization, IT strategy and system implementation, performance improvement and cost reduction, and forensic services. Cyber Security is an important topic today. We can support our clients in assessing the status of their processes and system security and help to find measures to improve them, if necessary. Other hot topics are robotics, artificial intelligence, and data analytics - we can support you in finding and implementing the best solution for your needs.