A Message from the President

This year is already over the halfway mark. Looking back, although the COVID-19 nightmare was gradually receding into the past, I think the beginning of this year was turbulent and aroused anxiety about the future starting as it did with the Noto Peninsula earthquake on New Year’s Day, which was then followed by events such as a related aviation accident and another large-scale fire in our home town of Kitakyushu after the one last year. Natural disasters are unavoidable, but the start of this year reminded us how difficult it is to prevent disasters and accidents caused by momentary misunderstandings or carelessness in human behavior.

　Last fiscal year was the first year that was not impacted by COVID-19 and had no restrictions on travel to or from other countries. KITA is now back to running as normal, but all of our overseas training etc. has returned to the original format of training in Japan and taking care of participants in Japan involves a lot more work for us than in the past two years. I was concerned about the impact of changes to the KITA team, but thanks to the cooperation of everyone involved, we were able to complete our missions without any major problems. I would once more like to express my gratitude.

　Looking at the news in general, recently in particular I notice a tendency to describe current circumstances by comparing them with the pre-COVID situation. People say things like “Sales have returned to pre-COVID levels,” and “The number of overseas visitors to Japan has exceeded the pre-COVID figures.” If I were to describe KITA’s operational status in a similar style, I think it would be “The scale of our operations in the last fiscal year remained at around 80% of the pre-COVID level.” From a brief analysis of the causes, the current shift from the short-term training programs we hold to long-term training programs such as study abroad and the impact of the de facto suspension of activities in technical cooperation during the COVID-19 pandemic seem to be having a lasting effect. Our activities this fiscal year take that situation into account. Although our international training business will inevitably see a slight decrease in comparison with last fiscal year, we will actively consider taking up the challenge of cutting-edge themes such as IT technology. With regard to our technical cooperation business, although this year, like last year, there are no projects where KITA itself is the implementing organization, we intend to identify new projects in collaboration with the municipal government of Kitakyushu. We respectfully request your continued support and encouragement for KITA’s various activities going forward.