Sadayuki Sakakibara
Vice-Chairman, Nippon Keidanren
President, CEO&COO of Toray Industries, Inc.

In January, Keidanren announced its future vision for Japan entitled "Land of Hope, Japan" We want to ignite the engine for new growth and help maintain and strengthen our growth potential, resulting in prosperous lives for our citizens.

The creation of value is indispensable from a long-term perspective. This is especially the case for Japan, where natural resources are scarce. We must urgently promote innovation and promote and use intellectual property fully. These are the views of Keidanren and they are also reflected in the government's Third Science and Technology Basic Plan as well as the Intellectual Property Strategy and, as will be explained in the keynote lecture, Innovation 25 as well. On the other hand, sustainable growth of the kind we are aiming for must go hand-in-hand with environmental considerations.

We already recognize the importance of the prevention of global warming, preservation of air, water and soil environments, development of a recycling-based society and measures against certain chemical substances. The CO2 reduction goal of the Kyoto Protocol must be fulfilled, not only by the private sector efforts, but also by the government and the nation as a whole. Environmental issues require efforts at a global scale. Japan is expected to contribute to the world through environmental technologies originating from innovation.

I understand that the concept of GIES is that of a social system in which countries, regions, cities coexist while competing and collaborating, in which various players complement each other to solve various issues. In today's symposium, we look forward to the discussion for the foremost experts in this field on various measures to tackle the issues and realize the concept. As was mentioned by our senior deputy minister, in the G-8 Summit this month in Germany there was a discussion on the promotion and protection of innovation. We hope to contribute to the summit next year by generating valuable output from this symposium.

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