A delegation of Japanese business executives looking to stir up trade opportunities in Alberta’s information, communication and technology (ICT) sector has found a welcome mat as big as the prairie sky.

A visit to Calgary last week was the first time that the exploratory trade mission, organized by the industry-sponsored Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), has made a stop in Alberta since it closed its offices in Edmonton in the early 1980s.

“In the past, they’ve gone to Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, and completely missed us,” says Mel Wong, executive director of research and technology commercialization for Alberta Innovation and Science.

The department, along with Alberta Economic Development, acted as matchmaker for last week’s meetings in Calgary, which saw companies including Calgary’s Cell-Loc and Wi-LAN and Edmonton-based IO-TEK talk tech with more than a dozen JETRO delegates and their interpreters.

Mel Wong

“It was very fresh for them,” says Wong. “It was the first time some of them had been here – some had been on vacation before to Banff and Jasper, but never on business.

“The interesting thing was the reputation of Alberta as an information and communication technology province had preceded them coming. That’s what piqued their interest.”

Sayed-Amr El-Hamamsy, chief operating officer of Wi-LAN, said the meetings helped local firms understand the mechanics of doing business in Japan’s telecommunications and ICT industries.

“Obviously, one meeting like this just gets the ball rolling,” says El-Hamamsy. “It’s still a long, hard road, but at least we have some doors open.

“The opportunity that came out of it was the potential for further networking via some JETRO representatives and some of the banking representatives who would be able to broker some joint ventures.”

Tokyo-based JETRO has branches in Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto, part of a network of 80 overseas offices. The delegation visiting Calgary from Japan was focused primarily on network technologies, multimedia and computer hardware sectors of the IT industry.

Wong says the Japanese companies in the mission are seeking both investment opportunities and partnerships with Alberta’s high-tech firms to help them source product and gain access to Asian markets.

“To have a preliminary recession going on there, and having the ICT industry in the sort of the state it’s in, for them to come is significant,” said Wong.

“I have to think, in some big way, it credits the reputation Alberta is getting abroad in terms of technology.”