15th Meeting of the Japanese-Austrian Committee for the 21st Century and Public Symposium

May 13, 2011
Japanese

The 15th Meeting of the Japanese-Austrian Committee for the 21st Century and Public Symposium will be held over two days from Sunday, May 22 to Monday, May 23 in Otaru City, Hokkaido.
The Japanese Committee members will include Mr. Hidenori Tsutsui, Advisor for Toyota Tsusho Corporation (Japanese chair); Dr. Susumu Egashira, Professor of Otaru University of Commerce; Dr. Wako Asato, Associate Professor of Kyoto University; and officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Austrian Committee members will include Dr. Wolfgang Mazal, Professor of the University of Vienna; Dr. Stefan Schleicher, Professor of the University of Graz; Mr. Stefan Hoffinger, President of an Austrian consulting company (tourism, transport policy, etc.); and officials of the Austrian Foreign Ministry (BMeiA).
The Committee Meeting on Sunday, May 22 will take as its themes "Labor policy in an era of population aging and low birth rate" and "Japanese-European economic relations".
At the Public Symposium on Monday, May 23, entitled "Aiming at Local Economic Revitalization," members will exchange opinions on local economic revitalization policies, centered on the tourism policy being actively carried out by Otaru City, which is the host city of this event, while receiving questions and comments from the floor.

Reference 1
The Japanese-Austrian Committee for the 21st Century was established in regard with the agreement made at the Foreign Ministers' meeting in 1990, with the aim to vitalize the exchanges between the two countries in various fields, to further promote the mutual understandings, and to seek ways to strengthen the close relations of the two countries. The first meeting was held in 1994, and until now, 14 meetings have been held.

Reference 2
The present meeting is being held with the cooperation of Hokkaido Prefecture, Otaru City, and Otaru University of Commerce (in association with Vienna University of Economics and Business).

(*This is a provisional translation. The above date denotes the date of the issue of the original press release in Japanese.)

(END)