Address by Prime Minister Suga at the Seventy-Fifth Session of the United Nations General Assembly（2020/9/25）

▸Address by Prime Minister Suga at the Seventy-Fifth Session of the United Nations General Assembly（2020/9/25）（→Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan）

【Excerpt】

   Japan will proactively lead international efforts with a focus on the following three perspectives in collaboration with other countries.
   First, we need to safeguard lives from the novel coronavirus diseases. Japan fully supports the development of therapeutics, vaccines and diagnostics, and works towards ensuring fair and equitable access for all, including those in developing countries. Japan also works with international organizations so that relevant international frameworks will be able to deliver results. We are also proposing a framework of “patent pooling”. Public-private partnership is essential particularly in the health sector, and Japan is going to promote it steadfastly.
   Second, we must prepare ourselves for future health crises. Japan is committed to expanding its efforts in developing countries to build hospitals as well as to assist strengthening health and medical systems through providing equipment and supporting human resource development. Working with the ASEAN, Japan is supporting the establishment of an ASEAN Centre for public health emergencies and emerging diseases. Japan has also been supporting the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. As a matter of fact, in Africa, we are witnessing the concrete result of our longstanding cooperation through the TICAD process for human resource development as well as for provision and maintenance of facilities in the health sector. Japan has provided support for the establishment of the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research in Ghana and assisted in the training of its medical laboratory technologists. The Institute serves as the hub of the country’s response to the coronavirus and processes up to about 80% of PCR tests carried out in the country.
   Third, we will take measures to ensure health security in an even broader context. We will continue to work with other countries to improve the conditions of water, sanitation and hygiene, nutrition and other environmental factors. In response to the current crisis, Japan has provided foreign aid of over 170 billion Japanese Yen or 1.54 billion USD to medical and health sectors.
   Along with these initiatives, it is critically important to take steps towards revitalizing the economies hit hard by the crisis. To bolster economic activities in developing countries, Japan is implementing the COVID-19 Crisis Response Emergency Support Loan of up to 500 billion Japanese Yen or 4.5 billion USD over the course of two years. Reviving the economy rests on the safe movement of people. We will make our utmost efforts to ensure universal distribution of vaccines and therapeutics. Free trade should not stop even with the restrictions caused by the crisis. We continue to promote WTO reform and economic partnership agreements with other countries. Times of difficulty are in fact times of innovation. Japan, for its part, will work on digitalization as a matter of urgency.