Tetsuya Suematsu, the Senior Vice-Chairman of Pakistan Japan Business Forum, released the following statement on the occasion of 70 years of Pakistan-Japan Relations:
First of all, I would like to express my sincere congratulations to all on the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Pakistan and Japan. I am honored that I reside in Pakistan in this conspicuous year by a stroke of fortune, and I feel something like fate.
I deeply pay respect to the people who worked hard for the reinforcement of the two countries’ relations in the past, and now we also must do our best to augment the relations and must hand over the spirit to our successors in the future to continue our relations perpetually.
If I go back to the past, many of the big cities in Japan were destroyed and all of the land and people in Japan were devastated after World War II.
However, after the San Francisco Peace Conference in 1951, Japan could rejoin the global society and achieved economic development and became No. 2 in terms of GDP in 1968 in the world.
Of course, its development was made by international trade, and, needless to say, business with Pakistan has spurred Japanese economic growth in the early stage through textiles.
I hear that around 80 Japanese companies were working in Pakistan in the 1950s.
Nowadays, we can easily feel the deep relations between Pakistan and Japan by simply watching Japanese cars running on Pakistani roads. Pakistan’s landmass is around twice the size of Japan and now Pakistan’s population is also around that much.
However, Pakistan has not yet shown its real ability. One thing I can say for sure is that we sincerely believe Pakistanis a country that can develop further.
The world is changing year by year; the current situation will not continue with the same one. And at the same time, there is always intense competition, and without big effort, we cannot move forward.
I think Pakistani and Japanese have similar characters in the point of mildness, kindness, and peacefulness.
For this reason, we Japanese naturally feel friendship with Pakistanis. We hope that Pakistan would develop itself and become affluent.
To do so, we are willing to do our best because Pakistan is always our important and sincere friend. I think that the simple and essential key to compete and win in the highly competitive world is diligence, honesty, and being methodical.
Finally, I would like to reiterate the hope that both the nations will have even stronger relations and would develop and prosper increasingly forever.
