Today (25 August), Werner Hoyer, Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office, will leave for a visit over several days to the USA and Japan.

In California he will mainly be discussing the prospects for German firms operating in relevant sectors that are crucial to our future. In San Francisco he will talk to German businessmen and in Silicon Valley and the Bay Area he will tour German companies active in the biotech and hightech fields. Minister of State Hoyer will also meet Douglas Bereuter, the President of the Asia Foundation, in San Francisco.

The main theme of Hoyer’s trip to Japan will be security and economic policy issues. His security policy agenda will notably include Germany’s and Japan’s commitment to further progress on disarmament and non-proliferation. Minister of State Hoyer’s discussions will also cover the impact of the economic and financial crisis on the two countries’ economic relations and the further reduction of trade barriers between Japan and the EU. To that end in Tokyo he will among others meet his Japanese counterpart, Deputy Foreign Minister Hisashi Tokunaga, and the Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary, Tetsuro Fukuyama. His schedule also includes meetings with the co-chairman of the Japanese Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren) and with representatives of the German business community.