Countries & Regions

On June 2, commencing at 5:10 p.m. for around 15 minutes, Mr. Fumio Kishida, Minister for Foreign Affairs, held a meeting with Mr. Koji Sekimizu, Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), who was visiting Japan to attend the Fifth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD V), which was being held in Yokohama. The overview of the meeting is as follows.

1. At the start of the meeting, Minister Kishida stressed the importance of maritime transport to Japan, and commended the efforts of the IMO to ensure safe and smooth maritime economic activities.
2. Furthermore, Minister Kishida expressed the expectations of Japan toward the further advancement of anti-piracy measures as the greatest donor to the IMO’s Djibouti Code of Conduct Trust Fund for anti-piracy measures around Somalia. He also praised the advancement of global warming countermeasures in the field of international maritime transport by the IMO, and said that Japan wanted to continue to make an active contribution to such efforts.
3. In response, Secretary-General Sekimizu expressed the aspiration to advance anti-piracy measures at an early date. Concerning global warming countermeasures in the field of international maritime transport, he reported that the IMO is in the process of enacting rules it has established on the matter.

(Reference) The IMO’s Djibouti Code of Conduct Trust Fund was established at the IMO in September 2009 to facilitate the implementation of the Djibouti Code of Conduct (adopted in January 2009 at the IMO Sub-regional meeting on maritime security, piracy and armed robbery against ships for Western Indian Ocean, Gulf of Aden and Red Sea States [the Djibouti Meeting]; it established goals related to such efforts as the enhancement of law-enforcement capabilities for anti-piracy measures that should be undertaken around Somalia, the promotion of capacity building, and the construction of a regional information sharing system).