Public Diplomacy

Noshiro City and Jordan have common policies such as promoting renewable energy and tourism, and also they both have world heritage sites in their territories. This is why Noshiro City became a Host Town of Jordan. The city has been engaged in various activities in cooperation with the Embassy of Jordan in Japan including hosting pre-games training camps for Jordanian Karate or Taekwondo athletes, promoting cultural exchanges between the athletes and local citizens, organizing events to introduce their tourist spots and local specialties, holding a film screening, and other online exchanges. Recently, “Noshiro x Jordan “Bonds” Gourmet Fair” was held in February. The city is aiming to build a close relationship with Jordan toward and beyond the Tokyo 2020 so that they will be able to welcome each other as a host family.

Nagano is a prominent "forest prefecture" where about 80% of its area is covered with forest. By taking advantage of the salient feature, the Prefecture is making various efforts to increase the production of wood materials and trying to turn into "forestry prefecture".
As part of these challenges, Nagano has been collaborating and interacting with Austria and Finland. Austria is famous as an advanced forestry country, and Finnish forest-related industry is highly competitive in the international market.

Reception for spreading attractiveness of Fukushima, Yamanashi, Oita Prefectures was held on January 29 at the official residence of the Consul General of Japan in Ho Chi Minh. This reception is aiming for introducing local charms and delicious local foods in various areas of Japan to Viet Nam, where the interest in Japanese food is increasing in recent years. Participants learned the charms and characteristics of these prefectures at the seminar, and enjoyed sake, shochu, yellowtail and mushrooms and so on. It is expected to expand sales channels of Japanese local products to Viet Nam and promote Japanese tourism.

Drink booth by Fukushima Prefecture

Presentation by Yamanashi Prefecture

Local products booth of Oita Prefecture

Misawa City, which locates south east side of Aomori Prefecture in Japan is a sister city of Wenatchee City and East Wenatchee City in Washington State of the US. Misawa City has been in touch with the cities for a long time, especially in terms of people-to-people relations. There is a story of an adventure flying over the Pacific Ocean between Japan and the US in the background of becoming sister cities.

On March 2, Local Partnership Cooperation Forum was held online to support international activities of local governments and municipalities. In the foreign policy briefing session, a MOFA official gave a lecture on Japan-China relations. In the second session, specialists gave presentations about overseas promotion strategy under COVID-19, and panel discussion about the theme was held afterwards.

MOFA continues personnel exchange program with local governments of Japan for many years. In this program, officials of local governments work OJT at MOFA in Tokyo and Embassies or Consulates abroad for several years. On Feb 26, trainees currently working at MOFA visited JR East Japan Railway Company in Shinjuku and attended lectures on the company’s initiatives related to "Tokyo 2020 Games", "Regional Revitalization", "Inbound Tourism", "ESG", and "Overseas Expansion."
They learned that JR East is determined to develop diversified businesses not only in local regions but also overseas beyond their mission as a railway company, and challenges sustainable revitalization of local areas together with local people from the perspective of coexistence and co-prosperity. In addition, the officials were greatly inspired by innovative efforts of the company to extend the creation of values in all directions even in the era of Covid-19.

"Happy Valentine's Day! Have an important day with everyone in Nanae Town!"
A short video of the congratulatory message delivered from Concord, Massachusetts to the sister city of Nanae Town, Hokkaido gained the most attention this month. In the first half of the video, a warm message that they, thinking of every person they know in Nanae Town, look forward to getting together, and in the second half, local high school students delivered a beautiful singing voice as if in the scenes of a movie. It's really impressive that they are connected at the 42 degrees north latitude!