Ahmedabad, 12 February 2013

“This is my third visit to this very vibrant state Gujarat in last eight months. Last time I came here to attend the Vibrant Gujarat summit 2013, and not 60, but as many as 100 Japanese companies had participated in that event and 17 MoUs were signed,” Japan’s Consul General in Mumbai Consulate Mr. Kiyoshi Asako said today in his speech after inaugurating the centre for Indo-Japanese Relations at Ahmedabad Management Association complex.

Earlier in the day Asako had attended an event on High Speed Railway in capital Gandhinagar. In reference to this, he in his speech said, “We put our dreams on that high speed train. We want to promote our techniques, our software that we are using to run the high speed train without any accident in last forty years. One high speed train leaves Tokyo every three minutes. We operate a dream express.”

Asako said strong India is necessary for Japan and strong Japan is necessary for India.

In reference to Asako’s speech, Shri Saurabh Patel, Minister of Energy and Tourism in his address said, “Yes 100 companies participate in the Vibrant Gujarat summit this year, but the number of participants was as high as 170.”

Patel said half a dozen countries wanted to become partner country in Vibrant Gujarat Summit 2013, but the state government selected only Japan and Canada, because these are the partners that stood up behind Gujarat even in testing times.