Home > About Us > Awards and Special Prizes > Special Prizes (2002) > Ceremony and Reception > Address by His Imperial Highness the Crown Prince of Japan
About Us
The Japan Foundation Awards / Special Prizes (2002) - Ceremony and Reception
Address by His Imperial Highness the Crown
Prince of Japan
In
this auspicious year that marks the 30th anniversary of the Japan Foundation.
I am very pleased to be here with you all the presentation of the 2002
Japan Foundation Awards and the Japan Foundation Special Prizes.
The Japan Foundation has contributed to international goodwill by promoting
world culture and human welfare through various activities of international
exchange both at home and abroad. I have visited such places as the Japanese-Language
Institutes in Urawa and Kansai, and the Center for Global Partnership, where
I could see for myself the industrious activities of the Foundation. I have
also attended events such as the Europalia Japan in Belgium, and the Japan
2001 in the United Kingdom, held under the sponsorship or with the cooperation
of the Japan Foundation, and have been impressed by the important role that
the Foundation is playing in these various countries. I wish to express my
deep respect for the enthusiasm and efforts of all those who have sustained
the Foundation in its domestic and overseas activities.
During the Foundation's 30 years, The Japan Foundation Awards and the Japan
Foundation Prizes have been presented to persons from many different countries,
including the awardees of this year. All these recipients have left a profound
mark on many fields of international exchange, promoting understanding between
Japan and the rest of the world, and I expect that they will continued to
do so with ever increasing enthusiasm. I am of the belief that personal exchanges
will translate themselves into mutual understanding on a national level.
Thirty years have passed, and I feel that the role to be played by the Japan
Foundation is even more important and weighty than before. I trust that all
of us here present today will join forces to forge an ever stronger bond
of cooperation and friendship among the peoples of the entire globe.