3. Tokyo, an attractive city open to the world

Stepping up preparations for the Tokyo 2020 Games

Visits to London and Berlin

Last month I visited London and Berlin. London, the British capital that established the Pax Britannica in the 19th century, overcame a diversity of difficulties it encountered after that time to restore its dynamism and establish its current position. I reached an agreement with Mayor Boris Johnson to build cooperative relations in areas such as support for the 2020 Games and urban management.

Berlin is also a city that has competed fiercely with London. This year marks the 20th anniversary of friendship city relations between Berlin and Tokyo, and I signed a memorandum of understanding with Governing Mayor Klaus Wowereit to cooperate in the areas of urban planning, environment and cultural exchange.

We have been studying our basic strategy for effective implementation of city diplomacy wherein we build friendship relations with the countries and cities of the world for successful delivery of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and also for supporting policies advanced by the TMG for disaster management and counterterrorism, the graying population, the environment, promotion of tourism, and promotion of culture. The draft of this strategy was recently announced. In particular, as the key to city diplomacy is active person-to-person exchange, we would like to create a new fund for human resource development. The final version of this strategy will be formulated within the year. We will advance city diplomacy that helps enhance the lives of our residents.

Reviewing the Games venue plans

London delivered an extremely successful 2012 Games. I spoke directly with Lord Paul Deighton, the former London Organising Committee CEO, and confirmed with my own eyes how the Olympic Park and many competition venues were faring after the Games. Since I first mentioned this matter to you at the Second Regular Session in June, I, along with Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games President Yoshiro Mori, have been exchanging views with the IOC and domestic and foreign athletic federations and cautiously advancing a reexamination of the plans for the 2020 Games venues. With regard to the 10 facilities that come under the charge of the TMG, as the governor responsible for Tokyo's future and as the head of the host city responsible for making the Games a success, I made the following decisions.

As for the three facilities of the Yumenoshima Youth Plaza Arena A and B and the Wakasu Olympic Marina, we will cancel construction of new facilities and use existing facilities. Additionally, the plans for the Sea Forest Waterway venue have undergone a drastic review, and with regard to the canoe slalom venue at Kasai Rinkai Park, environmental concerns have led to the decision to use a neighboring plot to construct the venue. While all of the other venues will be constructed as originally planned, we will continue to evaluate their impacts on their locations, including those on existing park facilities.

In our reexamination we are giving full consideration to our position of putting the athletes first. In addition, we expect that the revised plan can reduce overall construction fees by about 200 billion yen. With the ongoing cooperation of the parties involved, we will continue to strive for a reduction of construction costs. However, this should not keep us from remembering the real purpose of our review—to make these facilities that can be used and enjoyed by the residents of Tokyo after the Games. While constantly maintaining a balance between these two goals, we intend to brush up our plans for the venues.

Leaving legacies

I need not reiterate that 2020 is not our final goal. It is a passage point for the future development of Tokyo and Japan. If the constructed venues are not used after the Games and the surrounding towns become ghost towns, no matter how rousing the Games are, we will not be able to say that they were a success.

In the long-term vision to be announced next month, we plan to clarify the tangible and intangible legacies that shape our future vision for Tokyo. The Legacy Committee, which was launched in parallel to give more concrete form to the legacies, is now on the move. This committee comes under my jurisdiction, and under my responsibility, it will draw up an image of Tokyo in the future. In the waterfront area where the Olympic Village and many of the competition venues will be constructed, it would be necessary to have a comprehensive plan that is integrated with community development. We will thus advance studies by collecting the know-how of the private sector and the opinions of the community. The contents studied by the committee will be reflected and compiled as a Legacy Vision.

Moreover, these legacies will be effectively incorporated in future urban planning such as building the infrastructure, hubs, and a disaster-resistant city, and by also adding other perspectives such as environment and culture, ongoing studies will be conducted to have these lead to the sustainable development of the city. We will cooperate with the national government and Tokyo's municipalities as well to ultimately reveal our grand design for urban development, which takes a hard look at Tokyo 10 years, and even 20 years, after the 2020 Games.

Further advancement of tourism measures

We will actively advance measures for tourism in order to welcome many visitors from abroad. I plan to boost tourist guidance by, for instance, having the tourist information center at Haneda Airport—the gateway to Tokyo—open 24 hours a day. And in parts of the city that attract international visitors, I will advance preparations for volunteer guides to give out sightseeing information in foreign languages starting from the next fiscal year.

So that the tourism volunteers can feel that they are a solid part of a team, we plan to prepare uniforms and invite the public to participate in a contest to determine the team's name. I also hope to involve the media in cultivating a spirit of volunteerism for the 2020 Games.

On the day before yesterday, the public-private council to study multi-language measures put together its policy for engagement in multi-language efforts by transportation systems, restaurants, hotels and inns, and other establishments. For instance, at restaurants, the ingredients will be expressed in pictograms to allow customers to visually understand whether the dishes contain ingredients that cannot be eaten due to allergies or religion. We will also work with the National Governors Association to spread this effort throughout Japan.

I hope to decide on new guidelines within the year to have the public and private sectors form a united front over the next five years for concentrated and systematic promotion of the development of such an environment to welcome international tourists. This will include the building of a WiFi environment and the use of digital signage.

I also believe that if visitors to Tokyo make trips to other parts of Japan and experience the attractions there, we will have an increase of repeat visitors and this will be very beneficial for Tokyo and for all of Japan. We will first begin by holding talks with the six prefectures of the Tohoku region, Sendai city, and the private sector as well, for preparation of regional sightseeing routes. Tokyo will take the lead in promoting tourism for all of Japan.

Hospitality to visitors from around the world

I recently held a symposium with the residents of Tokyo in Koganei city under the theme of hospitality to guests from overseas. At the beginning of the symposium, I asked the audience if they would be able to show hospitality if a non-Japanese started to speak to them. Almost everyone raised their hands to answer that they were not confident. However, we showed them a skit on providing directions in English. I also participated as an extra. Then, when I asked the same question at the end of the symposium, most of the people in the audience raised their hands to respond that even they can do something simple like that. So, people can fully express their feelings of hospitality to foreigners if a small opportunity like this becomes available and they have the will to do so. I hope to boost this trend and I would be very appreciative if the members of this assembly could promote such initiatives in their constituencies.

It is estimated that in 2020 we will need about 80,000 volunteers for the operation of the Games and over 10,000 volunteers to provide information on sightseeing and transportation. We will formulate strategy to increase volunteers, and hope to cultivate this momentum in close cooperation with the Organising Committee, the municipalities, and private companies.

In providing hospitality to people from around the world, it would be essential to achieve a good balance between safety and comfort. In the runup to the 2020 Games, I hope to strengthen our counterterrorism measures, further enhance the quality of such measures, and have visitors enjoy Tokyo within an environment that boasts the highest level of public safety in the world.

Courageously addressing environmental issues

Achieving a hydrogen society

At the time of the 1964 Olympics, the Shinkansen bullet train began operations and Japanese society underwent a huge transformation. I believe that the huge transformation in 2020 will be the realization of a hydrogen society. When I visited London, I was given the opportunity to give a talk in English at Chatham House and the Japan Society to directly inform the audience as to what Tokyo is thinking. One of the questions directed to me at that time was that the Shinkansen is a legacy from 50 years ago, and what legacy was I going to be leaving for after 2020. My answer was a hydrogen society. Hydrogen society can be exemplified by hydrogen vehicles. I recently test drove a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle (FCV) around the TMG building. It was extremely quiet, with acceleration equal to that of a gasoline vehicle. During the 2020 Games, I want only next-generation vehicles such as FCVs and electric vehicles to be used for transportation between the Olympic Village and competition venues.

As FCVs have now entered the stage where the spread of their use will be promoted as a national effort, the TMG has also just set numerical targets and compiled policy to engage in this endeavor. We will establish 35 hydrogen stations in Tokyo by 2020, and expand this to 80 by 2025. If there are 35 stations, in most cases the nearest station can be reached in about 15 minutes. I believe this will be able to support the practical use of FCVs. We will also have 6,000 FCVs on our streets by 2020, and expand this to 100,000 vehicles five years later. In addition, the TMG will lead the way for the private sector by taking the initiative in introducing fuel-cell buses to the metropolitan-operated Toei bus fleet.

Moreover, I hope to increase the use of residential fuel cells to 1 million by 2030. By providing strong support in the initial stages of commercialization of this system, we will speed up the spread of its use.

Here let me touch on another advantage of the FCV. If an earthquake directly hits Tokyo, with this resulting in a power failure, one FCV can provide a household with the electricity it needs. In such a case, the fuel cell of a Toei bus can provide enough electricity to power an elementary school. I would like to emphasize this risk management aspect of the FCV.

New targets for renewable energies and energy-saving

Renewable energies currently constitute 6 percent of the power consumed; we plan to raise this to 20 percent by 2024. I had been arguing that we should make this 20 percent by 2020. However, after carefully studying this matter with experts and realizing that this goal may be quite impossible to reach, we set the figure at 20 percent by 2024, 10 years from now. This is still a very bold figure, but with the cooperation of the people of Tokyo and the members of this Assembly, I hope to achieve this target without fail. And what we must not forget in tackling environmental issues is that we must work to reduce the total amount of energy consumed and reduce our environmental impact to all possible extent.

Regarding the current target of reducing energy consumption in 2020 by 20 percent from 2000 levels, I believe that this target can be reached if we continue to steadily implement the efforts we have been taking up to now. But in order to venture into more ambitious efforts, we set a new energy-saving goal of 30 percent reduction by 2030 from 2000 levels. We will strive to achieve this goal while providing support for the energy-saving measures taken by households, industry, business and transportation, such as improving the insulation of buildings and spreading the use of fuel cells.

Smart city efforts are also underway in Kanagawa Prefecture. I saw the initiatives taken in Berlin as well. I gave a speech at the Japanese-German Center Berlin and spoke about Berlin and Tokyo aiming to become smart cities.

I also saw how London and Berlin are striving to promote the use of bicycles. Although the cities differ in their road circumstances and situation of bicycle use, I learned a great deal from their programs. And, of course, a unique situation exists in Tokyo as well. I plan to firmly advance bicycle policies, such as bicycle lane development and bicycle sharing, which suit the circumstances in Tokyo and Japan.

Increasing the dynamism of the city

Raising the city's international competitiveness

As I just mentioned, at Chatham House in London, I introduced our future vision for Tokyo and our policies to achieve this vision. And at the City, I discussed the Tokyo Global Financial Center concept with those working on the frontlines of finance. What I sensed there was the amazing ability of London to attract money, talent, and information from around the world. If memory serves me right, three-fourths of the bankers in London are foreign nationals, not British. This is truly a global financial city. The money, talent and information concentrated there give birth to big business opportunities. I again realized through my visit to London that "financial power lies in the power to attract."

Tokyo, the locomotive for Japanese economy, must become a global financial center to attract the wealth of the world to Japan. We will quickly formulate specific strategy to promote the "global financial city of Tokyo," such as working with the national government and the private sector to host international conferences that gather many financial professionals from around Japan and abroad.

We are also beginning concrete initiatives for the National Strategic Special Zone. We aim for the January 2015 opening of the Employment and Labor Advisory Center, which will support the activities of global corporations and startups.

Moreover, as school education is a large concern for businesspeople sent to Japan with their families, we hope to increase international schools in the city center where many foreign companies have their offices.

For those areas in the special zone districts with strong enthusiasm for town development, we are looking into schemes to have road management partially handled by the communities and have them use their own ingenuity to create high quality public spaces, such as roads that consider the cityscape, and generate new vitality. I hope to create a new scheme where deregulation will make it possible for community groups made up of local companies and others to manage open-air cafes, advertising, and events, and use the revenues for management of the roads and enhancement of the attractiveness of the area.

Creating attractive riverside

Areas around Sumidagawa River and along rivers leading to Sumidagawa, such as Kitajikkengawa River, which flows next to Tokyo SkyTree, were bustling with activity from the days of old Edo, creating a distinct Japanese atmosphere. Many sightseeing and cultural facilities are found along Sumidagawa. For instance, the Asakusa area has a vivid balance of tradition and the modern with the Sensoji Temple and SkyTree, and the Ryogoku area has strong cultural and historic tones with the Kokugikan sumo hall and Kyu-Yasuda Garden.

We will draw out the vitality of these areas even more by also cooperating with the local wards and private companies to strengthen ties between these facilities and the rivers, such as connecting the esplanades and lighting them up at night, and creating more dynamic movement by using boats. I hope to enhance the attraction of the waterfront as an important element of Tokyo.

Japan's treasures are its talent

Raising the city's international competitiveness

This year's Nobel Prize in Physics will be awarded jointly to Professor Isamu Akasaki, Professor Hiroshi Amano, and Professor Shuji Nakamura for the invention of blue light-emitting diodes. This truly shows the strength of Japan as a monozukuri, or manufacturing, nation.

Tokyo's small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are also giving birth to superb technologies one after another. The other day, I attended the Tokyo Venture Technology Award ceremony. This year's grand prize went to an innovative voice synthesizing technique that can have words entered into a computer generated in a real person's voice. I look forward to having these technologies of Tokyo's SMEs used extensively at the 2020 Games as well.

Such preeminent technologies are created by highly skilled professionals. We will provide solid support to the activities of the Tokyo residents and fully draw out the strengths of the talent concentrated in Tokyo.

Active role of women

I believe women constitute the largest potential force among Tokyo's human resources. In the next fiscal year, we will publish a white paper on the promotion of active roles by women, which will show the TMG's policy direction. I hope to have this lead to efficacious approaches tailored to various lifestyles. In addition, in order to build a network to promote women's activities on the international level, we will hear the opinions of experts and also study the promotion of personnel exchange. We would also like to prepare for the implementation of a human resources development program starting the next fiscal year to support the active role of women working at SMEs.

Fostering youth who carry the future of Tokyo and Japan

In this era of globalization, I believe it is Tokyo's huge responsibility to raise people with an international mind-set who can play an active role on the global stage. To raise the teaching skills of teachers, we will strengthen our partnership with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). We will have our public school teachers participate in the Tokyo Global Youth Camp, a hands-on training session that is similar to the training for Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV) before they are sent abroad, and deepen their understanding of different cultures and heighten their interest in international contribution. Other than newly hiring teachers who have JOCV experience, we will also increase the number of teachers sent to JOCV and upon their return, have them use this experience in their educational activities.

By having our children taught by teachers with a broad world view and awareness of issues, mental toughness, and sophisticated communication skills, I hope to fortify our foundation to cultivate global talent.