Dear President of the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Japan, Takaaki KOMATANI san, dear Secretary General, Davide FANTONI, distinguished members of the ICCJ, ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, good evening and welcome back to the Embassy for the 2025 General Assembly of the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Japan.
It is always a great pleasure to host this important meeting and to see so many familiar and new faces, all committed to strengthening the economic ties between Italy and Japan, particularly after the launching, in January 2023, of the Strategic Partnership.
This Partnership is both a great accomplishment, marking the importance of the bilateral relationship, and our starting line for a journey that will bring our bilateral cooperation to a higher level. The compass to navigate in this “new era” is the Joint Action Plan agreed last June by our Prime Ministers on the margins of the G7 Summit in Puglia.
In this framework, last year has been for the whole “Sistema Italia” in Japan a critical year to strategically creating new business opportunities among Italian and Japanese companies, as well as enhancing the cooperation in the political and security fields, in the trade and industrial sectors, and in the scientific and cultural domains.
In doing so, the ICCJ has been instrumental to expanding and exploiting the occasions for enhancing the economic ties, strongly contributing to supporting the Italian and Japanese companies in their business activities. This effort, sustained also by the Embassy and conducted under the leadership of Davide Fantoni, resulted in aggregating an impressive number of new members to the Chamber. Congratulazioni.
Looking ahead, the current year presents even more chances to further reinforcing the partnership between Italy and Japan. In fact, in a few weeks, Expo Osaka 2025 will open its doors offering for six months an extraordinary opportunity for Italy to highlight its cultural and artistic heritage, its traditional craftsmanship, its unique products, and its technological capabilities.
The Embassy, together with all the relevant Italian institutions, the “Sistema Italia” in Japan and the General Commissioner for Expo, is already working in order to arrange a full and dynamic program meant to display at its best the economic, industrial and cultural assets of our territories.
In the six months of EXPO, we will welcome to Japan many Ministers, all the Italian regional Governors, representatives of a very high number of Italian companies from aerospace and robotics sectors to agriculture, from life sciences and advanced technology to fashion, as well as delegations from research centers and universities.
Expo Osaka will therefore represents a unique opportunity to make the Strategic Partnership between Italy and Japan even more effective and solid and to strengthen the business, industrial and scientific cooperation.
We cannot miss this chance and I am sure that, together with the ICCJ and all its members, we will be able to exploit this opportunity and make this year, once again, a memorable year for the bilateral ties.
Thank you very much for your commitment to expand our bilateral relations and best wishes for a peaceful, happy and successful “year of the snake” to all of you.