On May 5-9, 2019, a group of 16 CEOs’/Directors’ from different Japanese companies visited Grameen organizations under Social Business Exposure Program (SBEP) to see social business activities and to experience how social business is working and playing role in solving social problems.

The tour was organized by Global Communication Center (GCC). The core objective of this initiative was to seek potential business opportunities between Grameen and Japanese companies and to transform these potentials into Joint Ventures (JV) or collaborations among Grameen and Japanese organizations.

The visitors came to know about the social business activities of different Grameen organizations and attended presentation sessions from 3 Grameen organizations; these are Grameen Euglena, Grameen Veolia Water Ltd. & Grameen Trust on first day of the program. Later on, the team participated in a 2 days long field trip program and experienced some of the Yunus Social Business initiatives of Grameen Shakti, Grameen Kalyan, Grameen GC Eye Hospital of Grameen Health Care Services Ltd., Grameen Bank, Grameen Danone Foods Limited and Grameen Fisheries and Livestock Foundation.

On last day of the program, they attended the inauguration ceremony of G. Japan Sunpower Auto Ltd. which was headed by Prof. Muhammad Yunus. After this session, the Japanese team had a presentation session from the Executive Director of Yunus Centre and an interview session with Prof. Muhammad Yunus. During this session, 2 MoUs’ had been signed with Grameen Communications.

One MoU was signed between Grameen Communications and 3S Corporation, a recycling company in Japan, dedicated to the social goal of providing recycle and waste management business under GramClean project of GCC. Another one was signed between Grameen Communications and Sunpower Corporation, a consulting company, planning to launch at least 30 JVs’ and/or joint collaboration projects between Grameen & Japanese companies over next 5 years.

At the end of the program, the Japanese team expressed their satisfaction. They think it was a fruitful visit indeed in terms of the purpose of the SBEP program. They also conveyed their heartfelt gratitude to the team of GCC for their sincere cooperation to make it happen everything according to the objective.