On 16 May 2017, Ambassador Kazuo Sunaga made a speech and joined a Q&A session at the seminar on “Strengthening Japan and ASEAN Relations on the Occasion of ASEAN’s 50th Anniversary: Can Japan remain relevant to ASEAN?”, co-organized by the Mission of Japan to ASEAN and the Habibie Center in Jakarta. Ms. Rahimah Abdulrahim, Executive Director of the Habibie Center chaired the seminar and Professor Dr. Dewi Fortuna Anwar, Chair of the Institute for Democracy and Human Rights of the Habibie Center also made a speech and joined Q&A session. Approximately 50 people including Permanent representatives to ASEAN and researchers attended the seminar.

Ambassador Sunaga outlined ASEAN’s progress and economic expansion and explained how ASEAN was important as an investment destination for Japan, referring to foreign direct investment from Japan to ASEAN and Japanese companies’ interests toward ASEAN.
Additionally, Ambassador Sunaga referred to five examples of cooperation:
- Strengthening ASEAN connectivity through developing infrastructure such as “Quality Infrastructure Investment”;
- Disaster prevention through the AHA Centre (ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management);
- “JENESYS”, a people-to-people exchange program between Japan and ASEAN for youths;
- “AUN/SEED-Net”, which promotes human resource development in engineering for sustainable socio-economic development of the ASEAN region; and
- Maritime security through Japan Self-Defense Forces and Official Development Assistance (ODA).
All these cooperation and programs are in line with the Blue Print of ASEAN’s three communities, namely ASEAN Political-Security Community, ASEAN Economic Community and ASEAN Socio-cultural Community, all established in 2015.
 
Participants had the opportunity to gain better understanding about Japan-ASEAN cooperation.
 
(Please click here for handouts.)