A Message from the President

Life is gradually returning to normal with the sense of social isolation spawned by COVID-19 over the course of three years being eased by steps such as giving people the freedom to choose whether to wear a mask and the downgrading of the coronavirus from a Class 2 infectious disease to a Class 5 one. Inbound tourists are returning to sightseeing areas nationwide and, to be honest, when I happened to visit Kyoto the other day it felt like nearly half of the tourists were from overseas. I was once more made aware just how abnormal it was that for the past three years the world was in a state where, in effect, countries had been closed off and people could not travel freely.
　For a long time KITA activities were mainly virtual interactions over the Internet as travel to and from other countries was suspended but, with the resumption of international flights, since the latter half of last year we have been able to welcome participants from abroad and recommence in earnest our dispatch of staff overseas for the purpose of technical cooperation. As a result, half of the courses originally planned by the Training Division had to be held remotely, but we were able to conduct the remaining courses in Japan as originally planned. Question and answer sessions between lecturers and participants are much livelier during courses held in Japan than when training is held remotely. Although there are some good aspects to remote training, I was strongly aware of how significant face-to-face interactions are. With regard to the Technical Cooperation Division, although there was a backlog of projects that would normally have been already completed, the staff were able to steer almost all of them to completion via six months of action and we were thanked by the local people involved. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the people concerned who cooperated with us in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, both domestically and overseas, and to the efforts of the KITA members who engaged in the work. It is thanks to all of them that we were able to carry out these initiatives.
　As for our activities for this fiscal year, the international training business will continue to hold the Promotion of Hydrogen Energy Use course launched last fiscal year, which was well received by the participants, and we are also planning to launch several new training courses. The aim is to hold the same number of courses overall as in the last fiscal year. The technical cooperation business has completed almost all the projects in progress, so this fiscal year we will do our utmost to promote projects at the planning stage and identify new ones. We respectfully request your continued support and encouragement for KITA’s various activities going forward.