We are three French students, passionate about finance, currently on an exchange in Taiwan. As part of our Portfolio Management class at the National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung, we studied different investment techniques.

Photo of our Portfolio Management class, taken by Lucas

According to the Worldwide Centers of Commerce Index, Tokyo is the third financial centre after London and New York so the city is of particular interest to us. The proximity to Taiwan, particularly in comparison to France, motivated us to go to there and discover the practical side of the theory we were able to learn during the semester.

On our agenda for the week:
- Meals with alumni from the school,
- Visit to a Japanese credit agency,
- Visit of a Japanese commercial company: Itochu Corporation,
- Visit to the Bank of Japan,
- Visit and lectures at Waseda University,
- Visit to the Japanese offices of a Taiwanese non-profit organization whose objective is to promote trade: TAITRA,
- Visit to the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

We are motivated to discover the world's third largest financial centre and are therefore trying to find various ways of financing. For this reason, we decided to introduce French food in Taiwan, through a sale of pancakes and coconut rocks during a cultural fair organized in our university.

This three-day operation alone represents nearly 5 hours of cooking per evening, the help of a dozen internationals whether for cooking or selling, as well as nearly 500 people who discovered the joy of French cuisine when they came to buy our desserts.

Our motivation and investment in this first project has already enabled us to raise what would approximately be 50% of our plane tickets.

Today we are launching a participative financing to try to raise a minimum of 500€, in order to finance the rest of the project.

Would you be willing to follow our journey and help us through it?
Thank you very much!!!!!

Lucas

Currently at the ESC Rennes School of Business, I am pursuing a dual degree course in management and international finance. When I started studying business management during my STMG baccalaureate, I was immediately fascinated by this vocation and I decided to continue my studies with a BTS in business unit management and a Bachelor in international trade and development. With this in mind, I did an internship in an SME in Spain, which opened me to the joys of an international career and then decided to go to Taiwan for my first year of Master. Beyond the wonderful cultural discoveries, I get to know myself and develop my openness in a multicultural environment. As I wish to become a strategy consultant, I decided to take the Portfolio Management class in order to acquire the required solid financial knowledge for this job. This educational stay in Tokyo would be for me the opportunity to discover institutions and companies with a world-wide reputation in a field that fascinates me.

Mégane

As a Business Management student at EDHEC Business School, specializing in corporate finance, I aspire to become a finance consultant in order to help companies facing major challenges and support them at key moments in their corporate life. I chose to do a year of academic exchange in Taiwan for my second year of Master so that I would discover a new culture at the opposite of my French habits, and immerse myself completely in it to challenge myself personally before embarking on an active life. The last eight months of studying in Taiwan have taught me the importance of cultural differences in the world of work. This educational stay in Tokyo would be an opportunity for me to understand the world of investment in a country with a culture still different from France and Taiwan, which would give me a more complete understanding of the sector in which I want to work.

Nathalie

I am enrolled in a Master 2 in Finance at the ESC Rennes School of Business, currently on an academic exchange in Taiwan at the National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung. Considering that I wish to start my professional career in an investment fund, I chose to deepen my knowledge in this field by attending a Portfolio Management class. Thanks to it, we are organizing a trip to Japan during which we will visit different companies, agencies, and banks allowing us to understand the differences and functioninf of investment there. Thanks to both a cultural pluralism between France, Taiwan and Japan and the different nationalities of the speakers and interlocutors, this stay would bring me additional skills and knowledge in the field in which I wish to work starting from next year.

Discovering investment funds in Japan: the journey of 3 French students