13 December 2016
Doha

Celebrating 83rd Birth Day of Emperor Akihito of Japan, a gala dinner was hosted by Ambassador Seiichi Otsuka, ambassador of Japan to State of Qatar. Present on the occasion were Dr. Mohammad Bin Saleh Al Sada, Minister of Energy & Industry, Qatar, Ambassador Ibrahim Fakhroo, Chief of Protocol, Ministry of Foreign affairs of Qatar, Ali Ibrahim Ahamad, Dean of Diplomatic Corps, ambassadors, diplomats, members of the Japanese business community and guests.

After serving as ambassador in Lebanon, ambassador Otsuka took over his responsibilities in State of Qatar just three weeks before.

Cake cutting ceremony was held after the speech of Japanese ambassador.

Following is speech of Japanese ambassador on the occasion

Good Evening!
Thank you for joining the Japanese National Day Reception to celebrate the birthday of the Emperor of Japan. The Emperor Akihito will be 83 years old on the 23rd of this month. He, together with the Empress Michiko, have been actively devoted to their duties as the head of the state throughout this year.

This year is the 44th anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic relations between Japan and the State of Qatar. The bilateral relations are excellent and matured. In September, the 7th round summit meeting between His Highness Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Bin Al Thani and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was held in New York. We would like to praise the outstanding leadership for promoting the bilateral relations.

The objective the two countries share is to widen the range of cooperation and deepen the existing ties. Both countries have already identified water desalination, education, environment, health and agriculture as newly prioritized sectors. Thanks to His Excellency Dr. Al-Sada, who performed as co-chair of 10th session of Japan-Qatar Joint Economic Committee held in Tokyo three weeks ago, the two Governments have pledged their full commitment to make our cooperative relations much stronger and closer.

I came to Doha just three weeks ago, and received very reliable medical research team as my first guest here from Japan. Dr. Hayashizaki, the head of this team, the prominent life-science medical researcher who attended WISH Conference here, elaborated his collaborative studies with the Qatari counterpart institute on human genomics project. Needless to say, this project requires innovative technology, enormous budget and mobilization of all biochemical knowledge. But once sufficient sample data is collected from people, it will make it possible to develop more accurate therapy applicable to each and every human body. Genomics program on sample collection in Qatar is so far the most advanced in the region.

Population over the world is getting old, and need to have more advanced medical services everywhere. Therefore Qatar is expected to play a central role in health care studies and researches in this region, according to Dr. Hayashizaki.

This story is very encouraging in terms of the success of human capacity building and present itself as one of the leading cases which open the doors to a new field of our bilateral cooperation.

Japan expresses, once again, our readiness and firm commitment to advancing and promoting our cooperative relationship. Let’s take up the global agenda to work for the good of all people around the world.

Thank you very much for joining us tonight and listening to my remarks. We wish for the prosperity and great success of both countries and countries guests belong to, and peace upon all of you.