Japan remains resilient, says Ambassador
JAPANESE Ambassador, Mr Keiichi Hayashi, last night thanked the British government and its people for their messages of condolences and their willingness to assist in rescue efforts at a business dinner in Manchester last night.
Speaking at an event for Japanese and British businesses organised by accountancy firm Deloitte, Mr Hayashi said that efforts by a search and rescue team which had flown out of Manchester had been “deeply, deeply appreciated by people in stricken areas”.
The earthquake that hit Japan’s North East coast just three weeks ago was the biggest his country had ever experienced and the fourth-biggest to register anywhere in the world. some 28,000 people are either dead or still unaccounted for, and Mr Hayashi said that the early indications were that the material loss to the country’s economy could be in the region of £150bn.
However, he said that Japan’s economy “will not go bust” and pointed to the resilient nature of the country’s economy.
He said that its population represented only 2% of the world’s economy but was responsible for around 20% of global research and development, and was second only to the United States in terms of the number of new innovations which are patented.
“I am not one to sound complacent, but it would be rash to write off Japan,” he told the audience.
Mr Nayashi also pointed to the strength of both the political and economic links between Japan and the UK.
He said that Britain was the first country in which Japan opened an embassy and that Manchester was the first city in which it opened an honorary consul – prior to it opening embassies in many other countries.
He also said that Japan was a greater inward investor in the UK than in any other EU country, with around a third of total Japanese investment into the EU coming into Britain.
