Local, State and Regional Government Representation Worldwide

Local, regional and national governments worldwide are struggling to retain and attract businesses, and to grow the employment base of existing companies. The prospects of seeing more local employment “outsourced” leads government officials to carefully consider their region’s competitive advantages and to take assertive steps to enhance them. We can help.

For over two decade, we’ve worked for local, regional and national governments in the United States, in Japan and in Europe to design and implement export-promotion, business retention and recruitment, local and regional public-private sector initiatives, and other infrastructure development efforts.

Foreign Direct Investment and Inward Investment Projects

We have handled foreign direct investment (and inward investment) projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of US, Japanese, European and Indian investors. Foster represented the United States as Special Counsel to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, charged with the task of increasing U.S. exports to Japan. He later represented the entire U.S. telecom and electronics industries as lawyer-lobbyist in Japan. His efforts led to the successful sector-specific market opening approach that has substantially increased U.S. exports of medical devices, telecom and other high-tech equipment and value-added agricultural and forest products.

Representative Successful Initiatives we have handled:

Since 2004 we have advised the City of Osaka, Japan, through our proprietary consultancy T.R.A.D.E., Ltd., in Osaka’s efforts to enhance the competitive advantage of local aerospace manufacturers competing with Chinese and other low cost providers.

The State of Illinois helped finance our work on behalf of Fluid Management L.P., to break into the Japan market with its sophisticated industrial machinery.State of Illinois funding also contributed to our successful efforts on behalf of the Northwestern Steel and Wire Company enabling it to export structural steel beams directly to Japan!

We served as outside general counsel for JAE Oregon, subsidiary of Japan Aviation Electronics Industries Co., Ltd., in designing and building the most modern electronic connector and electroplating facility in the U.S.

We handled all legal matters and served as contract manager for TOK America, Inc., subsidiary of Tokyo Ohka Kogyo, to design, build and start-up the most modern photoresist manufacturing facility in the U.S.

Our work for Departments of Agriculture in Oregon and Minnesota enabled them to obtain direct accreditations for their state agricultural testing laboratories by the Government of Japan. These successful outcomes substantially enhance exports by enabling direct exports of locally produced agriculture products into markets like Japan that were previously out of their reach because of “non-tariff” barriers.

We welcome inquiries from government officials interested in export promotion, business retention or other business development efforts. Contact us.