 Good afternoon. My name is Murat Sanmez. I'm a member of the Managing Board of the World Economic Forum. Also the head of the Forum Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in San Francisco. A year ago in this town, we announced the concept of creating a platform, a place, dedicated space to accelerate the impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, not just for the privileged few who can afford it, but for the rest of the society. It was a concept. It was warmly adopted by a number of businesses, governments, and they said if you set it up, we will be a part of it. And in the original founding team, Japan was the Meti, Minister of Economy and Trade, and India was the first government and said we're in. In fact, their fellow showed up in San Francisco even before we launched the center. That shows the importance and the attention. We also had some po-holdings from insurance sector and said, look, these changes have a huge impact on insurance and we're in thanks to Sakura Desan, followed by Suntori later on as a founding partner. And our goal at the center is to accelerate the impact to citizens and society by bringing together governments, civil society, businesses, international organizations, experts to accelerate, to create these governance protocols accelerating by implementing pilots. In just ten months, it sounds better. Should I start again or good to go? Okay, you can replay. In just ten months, we have achieved a lot. It was an exciting moment. We established a truly a dream team of leaders on blockchain, internet of things, artificial intelligence, data policy, drones, autonomous vehicles, precision medicine and the environment, and agile governance. We have today 37 partners, including the founding partners, Sampo and Suntori, Microsoft, SAP, Palantir, Turkcell, Kaiser Permanent and Reliance Holdings. I was really excited when we launched the center and got the attention and the adoption from around the world. Today, I am ten times, hundred times more excited. Because with the active participation of the Japanese government and active collaboration with the Asia Pacific Institute, we're announcing the opening of our very first sister center in Japan, in Tokyo. I will now invite Minister Taro Yanesa, Vice Minister of METI, for your remarks, Vice Minister. Thank you, Murat. Thank you, Murat. I am very pleased to announce the launch of the World Economic Forum Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution of Japan. The greatest risk of the Japanese economy is the shortage of manpower in the short time and the declining population in the long term. While this is a disadvantage, it can be the biggest advantage in boldly advancing the fourth industrial revolution. Why? Japan is the only place in the world that is able to drastically improve the labor productivity by making use of IoT, AI, big data without worrying about unemployment problems. Japan is in a superior position as a test bet for making visible the potential demands of a highly aging society. And for conducting social experiments to ensure the best outcomes. Everyone in Japan, regardless of age or residence, should be able to go where they want, be the life they want, and maintain connection with the society in spite of physical decline. The World Economic Forum Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution of Japan has three roles, as far as I understand. First is the promotion of the Create Innovative Projects, specifically healthcare, pressure medicine, mobility including an autonomous vehicle, mobility as a service and drones for aging society. Second is to build a network of global industry, academia, government, partnerships. Sister institutions located all over the world should become one massive platform. If you go to sister institutions, you will be able to connect with the world's most advanced community. Such a gateway will be built in Japan. Third, it's to overcome the governance gap, which is a gap between advanced technology and regulations, and is a gap among each country's regulations. The Japanese government will introduce a regulatory sandbox system that allows try-first on a project-by-project basis. By doing so, we will build test-pets for overcoming the world's most advanced challenges and promote rapid implementation of innovative technologies. The Japanese government is committed to realizing Society 5.0, which will lead to resolving the social problems by utilizing the fruits of the Fourth Industrial Revolution Center in Japan. Thank you very much. Thank you, Vice Minister. I now would like to invite Dr. Yoichi Funabashi, Chairman of Asia Pacific Initiative, and also a founding member of the Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in Japan. Thank you, Murat. First of all, I really am grateful for your inspiration and tremendous support that you have offered since last summer. And also, my special thanks goes to my Japanese colleagues here on the stage. I'm delighted to join the representative from the World Economic Forum and the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry of the Japanese government to announce the founding of the Fourth Industrial Revolution Japan Center today. The Fourth Industrial Revolution cannot be realized without a new model of private-public partnership. A traditional model of the government simply cannot keep up with that dramatic speed of the technological innovation. At the same time, the radical technological innovation cannot be deployed at a scale without public trust and due process. So what the world needs is a new way for the government to work with the private sector, agile, private-public partnership, to innovate, specifically to design, pilot, gather data, and roll out, optimize, roll out, and update the technological deployment in societies. The role of Asia Pacific Initiative, our institute, as a founding partner of that Japan Center is to convene stakeholders in Japan to help establish this new model of the private-public partnership. Finally, let me applaud the World Economic Forum, and particularly Professor Krauss Schwab for the ideas to create this center, sister centers. Sister center is an institutional innovation in itself. This really allows us to harness that technological prowess and reap the maximum benefits of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. So once again, I really am grateful for the government of Japan and the World Economic Forum to allow this to happen. At our institute, we have always prided ourselves, our independence, and our global outlook and initiative taking. But the success of the Japan Center really requires us to double down our efforts to double down our all values. Thank you. Thank you, Funabashi-san. Nakanishi-san, this cannot happen without active participation of the business community. And you personally also have been leading the concept of Society 5.0, and I would welcome your remarks about the center in Japan and your thoughts on the business community's engagement. Thank you very much, Muratsan. The recent three or four years of the World Economic Forum and the annual meetings are discussing how to manage the very strong way of the digitalization. As you know, the digitalization has changed of the other society's fundamentals very dynamically. Sometimes the positive and sometimes the negative factors we have. So I clearly remember the three years ago discussions. Many people talk about some of the very critical phenomena caused by the digitalization. But recently these waves will change of all of the global fundamentals. So the next step is how to manage the positive and negative factors of the digitalization. So that the fourth industrial revolution, the levels in San Francisco, is really taking this strong initiative to establish such kind of positive factors, how to manage some of the risks. Society 5.0 is also the same concept because of the initial stage of the digitalization. Many people talk about only industrial applications, but now these digitalizations are very, very important tools to visualize the many phenomena of the society. That's a great opportunity for us to making a world, you know, ideal society, so that Society 5.0 is a new creation of the values for the futures. And also that we already having the positive and negative factors, how to share the common goal, sharing of the goals of the futures. This time, the World Economic Forum is really the very fundamental discussions will be closed. So the Japan Center is also the very strong initiative to making the positive waves to create the next societies, the futures. That's a very important point, so not simply of the economic development, is how to establish of the digitalized society, so that this might be the widings spread out of the global standard to make our activities more productive. So that's a very great opportunity. Thank you very much for the words and the initiative to create this center. Thank you very much. It's our collective initiative, so thank you. The impact on society is really important and I think with the Japan Center we all collectively have the opportunity to create the reference architecture for an aging society and embracing the fourth industrial revolution to benefit the society and the people, and also the impact, positive impact on individuals and how do we minimize the negative impact. And as the international organization for public-private cooperation, in my view this is one of the finest examples of how the forum on a long-term commitment basis can catalyze collaboration between government, civil society and the business community initially represented here. And if I may say so, society 5.0 needs a new operating system in terms of governance protocols and the fourth industrial revolution may be that operating system. With that, I'd like to thank all of you for being here, as well as the business leaders from Japan showing your commitment and attention to this important topic. And open it up to questions. So if you can raise your hand, introduce yourself, ask a question and to whom you're asking it, we'll take a few of them if there are many or we'll go one at a time. So if you have a question, please. Thank you for everyone. I'm Mr. Park from Mailbusiness Newspaper Korea. I have a question to Vice Minister Yanase and Chairman Naganishi, and also congratulations on your assumption as chairman of GDNN. And everybody talks about these days about blockchain. And I want to know how do you prepare for the blockchain new era, driven by blockchain technology. So there's something to be done by government and by private sector. So I want to hear about those facts about Yanase-san and Naganishi-san. Thank you. Is there another question? Thank you very much. I have a question for Mr. Yanase-san, please, and also to Mr. Naganishi-san. Can you introduce yourself? My name is Enda Kern from Bloomberg News. The news on tariffs on washing machines and solar products that the US announced yesterday, giving the theme of Japan's aspiration to be a world leader in innovation and electronic goods and the like. What does that mean for the Japanese economy and what does it mean for Japan's ambitions as an exporter, those tariffs? Thank you. Any other questions? Yes, one more and then we'll get into the answers. Hello, my name is Teran Ishii from Asahi Shimbun. So I have a question to Yanase-san and Naganishi-san. So Yanase-san mentioned about the governance gap between countries. So what is the biggest challenge for Japanese companies to introduce, for example, the system, for example, in Germany or the other countries in the US or for example, to Japan? Yanase-san, what is the biggest barrier for Japanese companies to introduce similar types of systems? Thank you. Maybe we can start with blockchain. Vice-minister or Nabaishi-san or Naganishi-san, would you like to comment on it? I think the first question is about the blockchain issues. My understanding is that there are two challenges for Japan to face a blockchain new area. One is, of course, the current legal system doesn't match because the financial laws didn't expect the emergence of blockchain. So then the Japanese government is preparing to introduce a new type of law, step by step, as always. The second big headache for Japan is not only the legal problem, but rather the business situation. I mean, the Japanese financial institutions have introduced a very, very robust financial system, IT systems. So if blockchain replaces the financial payment system or something like that, then suddenly all of the best sunk costs of the robust IT system will have no value. So then this will bring about a very big cost and trouble and headache for the leaders. So then, not only the introduction of a new legal mechanism, but also we need to think about how to smoothly transfer from the current system to new technology. Thank you. Yes, that blockchain is a very new, very trusted transaction systems, not simply based on Bitcoin only. So we will create various financial schemes, but not only the financial schemes. How to manage of the total supply chains, including of some trade information to transfer the mangrove of the industries. Those kind of the real move, we need to have a very wide range of the challenges to establishing of the low-cost, reliable transaction management systems, not the centralized schemes. So we are looking at such kind of the positive moves of the digitalization, the very important future trend. At the center, if you look at the projects, blockchain is one of the nine. We sit as foundational technology, and I personally think that blockchain has even more potential than the worldwide web had 20 years ago in really changing the way we work. If you look at IoT's Internet of Things as a source of data, you need to authenticate the identity of the IoT. So blockchain could be a platform for that. If you look at data ownership protocols, maybe we did couple ownership from rights to use and tokens in Ethereum's smart contracts and tokens architecture provides the facility for that. If you look at the ability to define cross-border data flows, again blockchain can provide that platform. It's not scalable yet, but the Internet and the web was not scalable 20 years ago, so we'll get there. So it represents a huge opportunity. The second question was on the governance camp. Maybe Vice Minister and Funabashi-san, maybe you can share your thoughts on that. I think it is crucial for the new technology to be deployed in compatible manners with that value systems and ethical standards that each society holds. But nonetheless, I think that in the process of harnessing the new technologies, it's inevitable for any societies to be confronted with the gap, including governance gap. So I think it's very much important for the fourth industrial center to try to narrow the gap, preferably harmonize governance across the board. And that's one of the reasons why I think we strongly believe that a strategic value of that fourth industrial center, San Francisco Center, as well as that sister centers. Thank you. Vice Minister. Should I answer to his second question? You can pick either. Regarding the question on tariff imposed by U.S. yesterday, our central interest is to keep the WTO consistency. Of course, the safeguard is accepted by WTO, but I don't know at this moment. This case is consistent with WTO, so we need to check. But on the other hand, regarding the telephone and electric product, high-tech product, after the WTO, the development of WTO is very, very slow and limited. But in this area, we succeeded in introducing the ITA, the information technology 00 tariff agreement. It had a very big impact. I think it is the biggest success of WTO after URGAE, around WTO. So then we try to check and to minimize the trend of protectionism. And regarding the third question, what is the biggest barrier in Japan? Of course, many people complain the slow action of the Japanese government. Yes, it's true. But in this administration, we are introducing a lot of new trial such as the strategic deregulation zone. And then now in this administration, the Bayer administration is trying to introduce a new law for the technological sandbox. The reason is if we change the regulation of everything, it is very difficult. And especially when we face a very, very new innovation, trial should be step by step. So then the idea of introducing the sandbox system in Japan is to allow the trial and error among the limited participants. So then we can allow some error. So then if the trial was successful, then we can, the new regulation, the new deregulation, broader the next step. So then that is our trial based on the Japanese culture. Thank you. Any more questions? I'd like to go back to your question on the tariffs. Of course, the physical movement of goods is important. But imagine a scenario where you can 3D print any product in the world, allowing aging society with highly skilled people remaining at home, and using the fourth industrial revolution technologies to create products which can be distributed close to the point of consumption using 3D printers. And delivered for the last mile using a shared right service. So the fourth industrial revolution really has a lot of opportunities on enabling the aging society, the underprivileged, or even the current full-time workers to engage in multiple services and functions at a global level. And there is a need for a new way of looking at the trade flow agreements, because most of it will not be physical anymore. Because effectively, if you're 3D printing a product, you're importing it without crossing it through the physical border. And that's why one of the 14 systemic issues we're looking at at the forum level is the international trade in the fourth industrial revolution. And at the center itself, we're looking at cross-border data flows. From WTO to EWTO. And Nima Amasan, maybe you can comment on that. You are exposed to that in the consumer side. Well, thank you very much for the question. As a matter of fact, Japanese government is now leading the WTO in a coalition of civility countries to work around e-commerce, which is data flow you mentioned about. There is a lot of concern that a cross-border data flow would be limited by certain simple power. And we need technology to allow the data cross-border. So I think this technology will make it happen. I expect that. And blockchain could be potentially the foundation. Yeah, also that's a very important point that's already been mentioned. The current business relation is not simply of exporting or importing. It's a kind of the partnership, how to create the new value chain, those type of the different ways based on digitalization. That's very, very important for the futures. In that environment, really that new type of the rules are required. So the current tariff is really that simplified world. But next generation, we need the EWTOs, already Murat-san mentioned. The same issues is related to the other government's gap. We really need new rules for how to deal with the data, who owns it and how to use it. Those kind of new rules has to be created. Thank you. With that, Anase-san, Funabashi-san, Nakanishi-san and the rest of our guests here. I'd like to thank you for being here. To mark the beginning of the Fourth Industrial Revolution collaboration in the context of Japan, not only for the Japanese business and society and government, but for the rest of the world. Just looking at this interactive discussion, I cannot wait to have our center launched. Delays us by the summer and look forward to showing the results. And thank you again for being here and thank you again for your support. Thank you very much.