Abstract
Although being far apart, Iceland and Japan have enjoyed fruitful trade relations for decades.

In many ways, Japan's trade networks reaching Iceland can be seen as an indicator of the

expansion and global reach of Japanese trade from the early post-war period onwards.

Japan's export-driven economy found new markets around the world for manufactured goods,

and raw materials from all corners of the world flowed into Japan. Over the same period,

Iceland developed into a major fisheries nation and Icelandic seafood exports have found a secure

market in Japan since the 1960s. In general, Arctic trade has tended to be heavily focused on

export of natural resources out of the Arctic and this is indeed the traditional pattern that

we see in the trade between Iceland and Japan. The lecture will analyse four cases of
Icelandic-Japanese trade - focused on shishamo, whale meat, tuna and processing
equipment - while paying special attention to the (mutual) benefits of technology transfer
and market development through trade.