First Meeting of Organizing Committee of the Japan-Indonesia Friendship Year

July 31, 2007

On July 25 (Wed), the first meeting of the Organizing Committee of the Japan-Indonesia Friendship Year was held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tokyo, with a view to conducting various events to promote exchanges between Japan and Indonesia in wide-ranging fields, designating 2008, the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, as the Japan-Indonesia Friendship Year.
Consequently, the Committee, comprising about 70 organizations as committee members, was officially launched. Selected as Honorary Advisor was Mr. Taro Aso, Minister for Foreign Affairs, and as Chairman Mr. Makoto Okitsu, Co-Chairman, Japan-Indonesia Economic Committee (Chairman, Teijin Limited), as Acting Chairman Mr. Tohru Tsuji, Co-Chairman, Japan-Indonesia Economic Committee (Chairman, Member of the Board, Marubeni Corporation), as Advisors Mr. Taku Yamasaki, Member of the House of Representatives (Chairman, Japan-Indonesia Parliamentarians’ League), Mr. Yasuo Fukuda (Chairman, Japan-Indonesia Association), Mr. Fujio Mitarai, Chairman, Nippon Keidanren (Japan Business Federation of Economic Organizations), Mr. Nobuo Yamaguchi, Chairman, Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mr. Masamitsu Sakurai, Chairman, Japan Association of Corporate Executives, and Mr. Mikio Sasaki, Chairman, Japan Foreign Trade Council, Inc., and as Special Adviser Dr. Jusuf Anwar, Indonesian Ambassador to Japan.
At the meeting, also decided on were the regulations of the Organizing Committee, the theme of Friendship Year events (“Towards the Next Half Century”), standards for certifying events, logo, etc.
In November 2006 when President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visited Japan as a State Guest, the two leaders issued a Joint Statement “Strategic Partnership for a Peaceful and Prosperous Future,” in which they agreed to promote a variety of commemorating events in 2008 with the aims of broadening and deepening exchanges and cross-generation mutual understanding between the peoples of the two countries towards the next half century.

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