6. Promotion of the Tama Area and the Islands

Next, I will speak about promoting the Tama Area and the Islands.

In 2019, the opening ceremony and opening match of the Rugby World Cup will be held at Tokyo Stadium (Ajinomoto Stadium). This is estimated to have an economic effect of about 82.4 billion yen. We plan to request the organizing committee to have more matches held here. We will liven up the event through activities such as setting up fan zones around the stadium and decorating the streets through city dressing. In 2018, an event commemorating one year to go to the World Cup will be held. By keeping up this momentum until the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, we will have many people from around the world gather in the Tama Area and further place it in the limelight.

As I have repeatedly stated, Tokyo’s development will not be possible without that of the Tama Area. In order to ensure sustainable development beyond 2020, policies standing on a long-term perspective are necessary. At the Committee to Study Tokyo’s Grand Design held last month, a lifestyle was introduced in which people living in central Tokyo spend their weekends in a place full of nature. We will begin formulating a new Tama area promotion strategy that incorporates the elements of new lifestyles and ways of thinking, and is based on studies for Tokyo’s grand design.

A large portion of the Tama area and the islands are designated as natural parks. Next fiscal year, we plan to formulate the “Natural Park Vision.” We will study the appropriate form of natural parks in the new era. We plan to fully employ the area’s strength of location close to the city center, which allows our residents to easily enjoy nature, while also striving to maintain harmony with the environment. We will also promote the use of Tama lumber in commercial facilities and other areas of the private sector, and work for the realization of sustainable forests in a circular economy.

From the aspect of tourism, it will be essential to effectively convey the attractions of the Tama area and the islands. We hope to have booths at international travel fairs, place ads in prominent travel magazines, and take other efforts to raise the presence of this area and attract many tourists.

To prepare for disaster, we will purchase the national government’s former Tachikawa warehouse and enhance the disaster resilience of the entire Tama area. We will strengthen regional disaster resilience by building up our stockpiles, and if a disaster occurs, will use this warehouse as the center for gathering and distributing relief from all over Japan. We will fortify preparations in the islands through means such as steadily advancing the construction of tsunami evacuation facilities for the ports of Okada, Niijima and Kozushima.

Other than these measures, we will lay submarine cables to introduce ultra-high speed broadband to five villages, six islands of the Izu Islands. An “island study program,” in which students from the mainland go to an island high school to study while staying with local families, will also begin from this April in Kozushima. I believe that the experience of studying in an expansive natural environment while coming in contact with the warmth of the islanders will prove highly valuable to the students in their future lives. We hope to spread this initiative to other islands.