JCCU in cooperation with member co-ops has established Asian Consumer Co-operative Development Fund for the purpose of developing co-operatives in Asia, facilitating exchanges between co-ops and providing grant assistance for educational training and exchange projects.

Under this fund, training program has been conducted every year since 1995 in Japan for managers of consumer co-ops in the Asia Pacific. This year five co-operative managers from five Asian countries came to Japan on this program from July 17 to July 30 2017, in cooperation with Co-opdeli Consumers’ Co-operative Union and Miyagi Co-op focusing on store business.

The participants were Ms. Maylene Quiroz MALAPITAN, Cebu Mitsumi Multi-purpose Cooperative, Mr. Sandip Pandurang POWAR, Shree Warna Vibhag Sahakari Grahak Mandal Ltd. Mr. Hanafi Bin BASIRAN, Koperasi Hasil Dalam Negeri Malaysia Berhad, Mr. PARK Seong Cheol, Dure Consumers Co-operative Federation and Mr. Bilguun BOLDSUKH, Mongolian Neighbour Cooperative.

In this program, through lectures, store training and facility tours, participants were able to learn and understand consumer co-op business in Japan and how the business and activities contribute to the improvement of the community and the society as a whole.

In terms of management issues, participants also learned the productivity improvement of store business, store policies and product development taking into consideration competition, mechanisms to reflect the voice of co-op members in business and activities, staff education and networking with producers.

At Co-opdeli, as part of the facility tour, participants visited housing for elderly with homecare services provided to learn about welfare business of consumer co-ops.
In Miyagi Co-op, participants took tour of stores and learned about the actual store management practices, staff education, the organization structure of member activities, the home delivery business/logistics mechanism etc.

They also took a tour of the Miyagi Co-op Data Archives of the Great East Japan Earthquake to learn about the efforts of the Co-op during the disaster and the situation of the recovery exercise. On the final day of the training, participants gave reports and future action plans, and what they intend implementing upon return to their home countries.