[Title] Japan’s Country Statement by Japanese Senior Vice Minister of Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry Mr. Masashi NAKANO on the Second Ministerial Meeting of the APP

It gives me a great pleasure to attend the second Ministerial Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate together with top executives of Japan’s industries of steel, cement, power generation and appliances, and to have an opportunity to present Japan’s Country Statement.

Allow me to express my heartfelt appreciation to our gracious host, the Government and industrial circles of India.

APP, launched in July 2005, experienced its first inaugural Ministerial in Sydney in January last year, and formulated Action Plans of 8 Task Forces in October of the same year. These Action Plans embrace more than 100 projects and have steadily been evolving since their inception, as exemplified by the continuous addition of new projects to accumulating 110 projects by now. Japan is actively contributing to 46 out of the total 110 projects, 12 out of 18 flagship projects. It is important for us, Ministers of 7 countries here today, to confirm the progress made to date since the inaugural Ministerial, as well as to deepen our discussions with a view to further accelerating our initiatives in each Task Force.

I want to take this opportunity to heartily welcome Canada, who attended PIC meeting in Tokyo in July as an observer, now as an official member. I am convinced that Canada’s participation will further enhance APP activities.

As you are all aware, APP is characterized by the fact that:

1. The original 6 members coexisting in Asia-Pacific region and accounting for approximately 50% of global CO2 emission,

2. under the banner of Public-Private Partnership (PPP),

3. to take effective measures targeting at 8 specific areas including steel, cement, and power generation; thus responding to such difficult task as global warming.

Specifically, for each Task Force, the governments and industries of the Partners, grasping the reality of industries, promote 1) development and diffusion of optimum technologies to bring effectively about energy saving and CO2 emission reduction, 2) as well as sharing of the best practices.

With this concept in mind, both Steel and Cement TFs where Japan serves as the Chairs have tackled various activities, about which our 2 Chairs will be glad to report later. I myself want to point out 2 aspects on the basic direction of those activities.

The first point is that there is evaluation of the potentials in the activities. Steel TF extracted 10 major energy-saving technologies and demonstrated that if spread to all 6 countries, these technologies would reduce 130 million tons of CO2 in total. This is roughly equivalent to 10% of Japan’s 2005 total emission.

The potential evaluation is being promoted in Cement TF as well.

My second point is that the most effective technological cooperation is carried out in order to realize the scientifically-evaluated reduction potential. Japan’s energy conservation experts diagnose the operations of steel and cement factories in China and India, and then give advice on the need of energy-saving equipments best fit for facilities.

This performance diagnosis is scheduled to proceed. Already, in both Steel and Cement TFs, discussions with China and India including selection of target plants have started, and we expect the first dispatch of diagnosis team by the end of this year. Japan intends to actively promote such cooperation projects.

Not only Steel and Cement TFs but also all other TFs have witnessed the steady progress of many projects being implemented. It is important to appropriately evaluate performance and to demonstrate the effectiveness of APP’s sectoral approach.

Energy conservation is energy without CO2 emission. It also is the most cost-effective method to achieve 3E’s. (policy objectives in energy, environment and economy) at the same time. This idea is increasingly accepted globally.

In order to accelerate energy conservation, technology is the decisive key. The cooperation from the industry which owns technologies is indispensable in order to promote energy conservation in countries such as China and India, where energy demand is projected to rise substantially going forward. To that end, there must be a “win-win” relationship between providers and recipients of technologies through APP activities. I expect that today’s Ministerial Meeting would serve as a golden opportunity to build such confidence among us.

Japanese government is willing to continue making efforts to promote further government-industry cooperation of the Partners.

The review on the indicators and best practices being discussed at IEA is also under consideration in APP TFs. Enhanced information sharing between APP and IEA should be promoted to accelerate work on both ends.

Japan has implemented energy conservation technology cooperation via bilateral cooperation and others. Japan will work to continue supporting APP activities, making it available also for APP-related projects such as performance diagnosis.

Not well-endowed with energy resources, Japan, with close cooperation between public and private sectors, worked hard since the oil crises, and succeeded in improving energy efficiency by 37% while doubling its GDP and reducing oil consumption by 8% over the last 30 years.

I am convinced that Japan made extremely reasonable choices, because we could achieve high international competitiveness through our efforts to develop energy-saving manufacturing methods and products.

As I speak, we the 7 members are joining hands, our governments and industries united, to face difficult tasks ahead. The key to success for APP lies in our strong will.

Japan is committed to contributing greatly to the promotion of APP by disseminating outstanding energy-saving technologies and presenting the Japanese model of a society in harmony with environment.

I thank you for your attention.