The Romanians' attention has so far been directed to the West primarily, says His Excellency Yoshinobu Higashi, Japan's Ambassador in Bucharest, in an interview published by Ziua daily on Monday, in which he asked Bucharest to turn its attention to the East too, where it will find Japan to be a reliable partner.
Having been in Romania for six months, the Japanese diplomat speaks in the interview of the five decades that have passed since the Romanian-Japanese diplomatic relations were resumed and of the wish of the authorities in Tokyo to develop a wider cooperation with Eastern Europe.
Although the Romanian-Japanese relations date back to over one century ago, Japan's Ambassador in Bucharest mentions the fact that, after the Second World War broke out , the diplomatic relations were severed in 1944 because of the war, when his country severed its diplomatic relations with several states, but in 1959 the Romanian-Japanese relations were resumed and in 2009 we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of this event.
The Japanese official makes it clear that Prince Naruhito and Princess Masako will visit Romania , Hungary, Bulgaria and Austria in May. According to the Ambassador, there are three reasons for the imperial visit to these four countries. First of all, the wish to focus his country's attention to the remaining part of Europe as Japan has so far cooperated with the West more. At this moment our attention is directed to the East.
The economic growth in the region of Eastern Europe is high enough, which is very attractive for the Japanese investors. Second, Eastern Europe has much skilled manpower, says the Japanese diplomat. He also says that there are numerous economic agreements between Romanian and Japanese companies and his country expects trade exchanges to intensify. Yoshinobu Higashi admits that the Japanese automotive sector as well as the American one is affected by this crisis and appreciates that things are different in Romania.
He says that, if ten years ago, there were very many Dacia cars (a Romanian car make), now Romania's capital is full of luxury cars. The Japanese official thinks that the investors from Japan will come to invest more when the Romanians buy their second car for their family and adds that, according to the studies that were made, the Romanians might be willing to turn their attention to such a car worth about 10,000 euros.
"Romania's evolution on the car segment has seen a tremendous growth and some stages were even left behind. I think that the market moved extremely quickly. The same tendency was obvious in the whole Romanian economy. For instance, Japan has had a gradual growth, but Romania has had an extraordinary sudden growth," he adds.
The Japanese Ambassador in Bucharest stresses the fact that, as they will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the resumption of the diplomatic relations, his country wants to make a proposal to Romania's President Traian Basescu to go to Japan this year or next year. He says that Romania has made him an interesting proposal of preparing the visit of the Japanese Premier to Bucharest.
As for the ratio of the trade exchanges between the two countries, the Japanese official explains that, according to the statistics in Tokyo, Japan's exports to Romania amounted t o 255 million dollars and the Romanian imports from Japan amounted to 23 million dollars. But he remarks that these are unofficial statistics only, in reality figures are much higher. Trade consists especially of clothes, wines and other consumer goods.
The Japanese diplomat also mentions that Japan has important investments in the Suez Canal and the port of Constanta (south-eastern Romania) too. Romania already benefits from the Japanese technology in this field.
As for the interest taken by the Emil Boc Government in building the infrastructure again, the Japanese diplomat says that many Japanese companies in cooperation with the Romanian ones were to be in charge of these building sites and Japan is willing to offer its technological experience. We want to have a cooperation on an equal footing and do not have the mentality of superior experts in this field, said His Excellency Yoshinobu Higashi.
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