Your excellency Woo Dong Gi Chairman of the Presidential Committee for Balanced National Development.
Your excellency Oh Young Hun governor of Jeju province.
Ladies and gentlemen good afternoon
It is my great pleasure to be with you on this pleasant evening
I take this opportunity to express my warmest congratulation to the
Asian forum on Peace & Sustainable Development committee for hosting the forum.
The road for the planet, people, prosperity, and governance.
As a team of this year’s forum is actively promoted in my country United Arab Emirates.
In 2020, the UAE send Al-Amal spacecraft to Mars called The Hope mission.
The Hope mission is part of the country’s national space strategy 2030 to play a role for the planet.
The happiness of the people is one of the major agendas of the UAE.
The UAE leadership considers the nation’s people as a key asset to building a strong future.
As prosperity is concerned, the UAE has been achieving remarkable international index,
rankings over the past years.
With regard to governance,
the UAE has recalled an excellent indicator in terms of the political severity,
government effectiveness, absence of violence and terrorism,
and control of corruption just to mention a few.
I hope that the forum will succeed in achieving its objectives,
Thank you.
Hello, I am Maria Castillo Fernandez and the UN ambassador to the Republic of Korea.
I would like to thank the chairman of the Presidential Committee for Balanced National Development
for his kind invitation to this event.
The theme of this year’s forum for Asia Peace & Balance development
are all for the planet, people, prosperity, and governance
couldn’t be more relevant in timing
given the very difficult global economic and social context we are living in today.
Conflict, part of the world created security and threatens peace (inaudible).
The Russians regression in Ukraine.
Illegal.
Brutal.
Has secured 10 thousand of (inaudible) and displaying more than 12 billion Ukraine so far.
By disrupting energy and food supply chains,
Russia’s actions have destabilized the global economy and jeopardized loan security as well.
Despite multiple crises, fuel global insecurity, climate change,
pandemic, environmental degradation, water shortage, and democratic pressures
they will keep on working to achieve global peace and to appeal the international legal order.
In particular, the European Union is determined to strengthen this cooperation in and with Asia.
As European prosperity and Asian peace and security are very closely connected.
This is also in line with the steps we have taken in the past years
to consolidate our role as a global security provider not only the global economic provider
and this is within the framework of the Indo-Pacific European strategy.
Europe and Asia share from the mentally interest in a rule-based international system.
As well the view to the challenges the world face today
go beyond national borders and cannot be tackled alone.
Thus for working together with Asia for peace and prosperity is, therefore, both desirable and necessary.
Ladies and gentlemen, we’re gathered together today to discuss promoting peace and prosperity to this region.
I would like this who are committed to working closely with parts in Asia and ready to share our experience.
I believe this forum will provide an excellent round for discussion on that note.
The international rule base order is our order, your order.
The order for all of us and we need to preserve it.
I wish you all a fruitful constructive and positive forum. Thank you
So, I go in English okay.
First of all, I really feel sorry for the Itaewon tragedy
and within this tragedy, I really appreciate for inviting me to this precious conference event.
So today, I’m going to present about work opportunities for elder people.
Let me ask one question.
Until how old do elder people work in your country or in your area?
Probably for women, they keep working as housewives.
How about men?
In Japan almost 60 years,
we set up the border and after that, a lot of people quit their job, quit working.
How about your country?
So, let’s proceed.
First of all, let me introduce myself,
Again, my name is Hisao Nakayama from Japan.
I sometimes go by George
because a lot of foreign people have difficulty pronouncing my name
so I have an English name also, so please call me George if you like.
And this is my career.
Now I run several companies.
So this is my work experience.
From 2001, I enter one big Japanese old company called Idemitsu Kosan
and keep working for about 10 years
then I just changed my job to one big chemical company, a global company called SABIC
and during Idemitsu Kosan or SABIC I sometimes come to Korea
because I got some business with Kumho, LG, Hyundai, Aekyung something like that.
And this is my company’s introduction,
I have some roles, several roles
mainly I have two companies about caregiving services and the other work support company.
I mostly focus on those companies’ activities.
This is the company profile.
So as I told you, mainly I got two companies running
and our business field is caregiving
also the medical field (Home-nurse), senior residence, nursery, and job support.
Especially the location is pretty spread out,
well the head office is Nara Prefecture.
Maybe I think Nara is kind of strange in the Korean language
it means country, right? “우리 나라” and is something I feel that it's related.
So, as you may know,
we in Japan are facing a very severe situation of a high aging rate.
Two years ago, in 2020 the shares over 65 years old.
Oops sorry.
Oh, this one. This one.
The rate over 65 years old population reached over 30%.
So one-third of Japanese are now over 65 years old.
It’s a very severe situation.
And the current population in Japan is about 120 million people
but in 30 years, year 2050, we’re getting into a population of less than 100 million people
so we’re going to lose about 20 million people, over 20 million people in my country.
As long as, the high aging rate then our social expenditure of Japan
I mean social security expense is growing year by year
and this is also a severe situation.
And we got mainly three main, three kinds of social security services,
one is pension, health including medical and welfare something like that.
The high aging rate grows total expenditure of Japan is also increasing rapidly and this is a serious problem.
So now, let me show you one animation,
a video, about 3 minutes long.
The reason why I start to give service to elder people working.
Thank you very much.
The video is playing in Japanese but I post this video on YouTube channel
so if you want to look at it in English or Korean version then I can give you the YouTube address
so you can check it out.
So as I mention it’s because I just moved this social welfare service industry from the petroleum industry
then I felt like at first when I got the job for this industry
I felt like really strange not substantiable system in Japan
in the medical field, social welfare field increasing rapidly,
nobody thinks that decreasing this field or expense
so one day I just talked to my facility user which is about maybe 65-68 years old women.
She just talked to me that I want to die,
that’s just a serious comment to me and I was shocked
but when I look at the women
she is really skillful and she really likes to make some crafts and cooking and something like that
but people think that she is already retired
I just felt that, wait those people are like mining gold
we need to utilize or use take advantage of their wisdom and experiences.
That’s what I felt at the moment.
So I just think that, I need to make new service for them.
Then I just name them Awoni Kobo.
Awoni Kobo is only Japanese brand,
just name the brand for this service and it’s only a name.
I start to develop this service in 2019 April
and at first I just opened the service for elder people in our nursing home
which is the candidate the people who live in our nursing home.
I just felt, I got two symptoms for good things and bad things.
What the good thing is
that I felt like this is, wow this is really effective for elder people,
I mean working is probably curing them to anti-dementia or something
and the bad thing is that this is never successful for a business.
It’s very tough to make money in this field.
Those two symptoms are what I felt at the moment.
So I just keep trying to give them a new job, new work or something.
But a lot of people have diseases or differences to act something
or some people are like dementia suffering from dementia or something like that
and I just renewed the services
so in Japan, we got social security service called daycare service
what daycare service is that all the people just go to faculty and doing rehabilitation
and we call it daycare service.
We need, they need also social security expenses
and I just installed this working service into the daycare service
then this looks like it’s successful as rehabilitation
and this year,
this April I start to cooperate with one of the Japanese cities called Amagasaki city,
this is one of the Japanese cities.
Amagasaki city already had two sites which is giving work or job opportunities for elder people
but they also suffering from
I mean Amagasaki city is also suffering from an appropriate operator.
They never find an appropriate operator.
so I just raised a hand
and okay I got experience for elder people working
and we just shake hands to start cooperating.
And apparently, looks like really successful
and now two sites and about 50 elder people come to the site and work
and the age range is about 75 years old to 95 years old.
So, what they are doing for job is like this,
mostly crafting and packaging something like that,
cloth towel, herb for bath, coffee drip pack, packing and souvenir packing something like that
and one thing really interesting is this one, kimono re-make.
One designer, there is one designer in Tokyo who just re-make kimonos into t-shirts or skirts
and this product is really popular online.
If she just posts the product online probably 20 or 30 seconds somebody buy.
Maybe more than 200 US dollars for one t-shirt or one skirt
it’s a very very worthy and very high-value product.
And what elder people do is unpick and slipping the kimono into normal clothes.
This is very very um well.
They look like they have really good experience on dealing with Kimono
and they are very professional.
And the other thing is making lunch boxes,
this is a little different from the other job
because this needs team play, teamwork.
So, several people gather and just talk and making some lunch boxes
it’s really useful for their health.
So now I’m going to introduce the outcome.
So good symptoms for elder people.
There are a lot of good symptoms like support economically
well this is not too big but they have,
a lot of elder people already have pensions
but they add to this some money for their fun
or their how can I say, well economically it’s sufficient
and life purpose.
several years ago I was shocked that a lot of elder people just lose their life purposes
and you know some people are saying that I want to go die or stuff like that
but almost all people who work this job
they are smiling and glittering through their life
and communication with others
so we just give them not only work opportunity
but also community and anti-dementia and stable of life rhythm
also, this opportunity gives a lot of companies really good symptoms
like support economically also developing products for elder people.
This is really in terms of the brand this is really a good thing
and contribution to social inclusion.
Now the worldwide issue we have to focus on these diseases, right?
This issue is really matching I think for these disease issues.
So, this is the final page
My goal or I would say our company’s goal is solving social issues, especially aging, high-aging rate.
And increasing social expenses
so how do we stop this issue
is expanding duration of active and worthy life for elder people.
so, our mission, I got two missions,
one is to stop using mechanics, giving job opportunities for people
and the other is collecting data.
I think there are tons of data we can collect through the opportunity for work build up people
and finally, I need to establish one big platform for support, job opportunities for elder people
and maybe hopefully developing this system or mechanics spread out
of course Korea, China or all over the world and contribute to all the world for a healthy and active life for elder people.
Thank you very much that’s it for my presentation.
Thank you very much for giving me another time.
Well, as I introduce myself,
in my business, I have several nursing homes.
I focus on the especially middle-class cities.
The population is from 300 thousand to 500 thousand like Jeju city
And what I feel doing this business in that area is
I think in the current trend in Japan,
for example, I used to live in Tokyo for 16 years and I move to near Kobe,
now I live in Kobe.
when I live in Tokyo close to Shinjuku and Shibuya it’s a very convenient area and high education system
but now I would say that Kobe is a very good city compared to Tokyo
because we have good education and (inaudible) system and what's more
good nostalgia and that’s what she said in Jeju.
The young generation recently really likes nostalgia like Japanese culture…
like traditional things.
In my field, elder people just can give young people just some nostalgia
it’s in a way education so we need to activate those trends in some cities.
One more thing in Nara I got some nursing home in the rural area
and I’m suffering from one aspect which is
I’m on the economic side but there’s no relationship with the government and the academic side
so I need to connect those three aspects to build up to grow nostalgia or the city, activate up
but I think Korea situation you have; we need to solve to get together and cooperate.
Thank you very much.