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Prime Minister Shinzo Abe attended the Gathering of "Discover the Treasures of Farming, Mountain and Fishing Villages" at the Prime Minister's Office.

The Prime Minister said in his address,

"As I travel around the country as Prime Minister, I am always amazed at how local Japanese communities each have such truly wonderful charms. I believe it is our job to spread this awareness to many more people and to disseminate it to the world. I believe that learning more about each other’s hard-working colleagues will also give courage to the young people in local communities and to other people working hard in local communities.
By learning about your ideas, others will discover different ways of reinvigorating and vitalizing communities and apply these to their own communities.
In the process of promoting sixth industrialization, we will make efforts to ensure that agricultural and fishery products have ever greater added value and that the incomes of the people in local communities will increase. By working together to strengthen the brand power of local communities, we will be able to create added value for your products. These products might even end up being circulated throughout Japan and across the world. 
In addition, as cities and farmlands gain further vitality and people travel back and forth between them, both will be able to reap the benefits.
In the coming years, the number of foreign tourists to Japan will increase significantly. Last year, we reached the 10 million mark, and the number continues to rise steadily. If such foreign tourists make trips not only to major cities, such as Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto, but also visit rural areas more, this will become a new source of vitalization for local areas and open up new possibilities.
To this end, I hope to make today's gathering of 'Discover the Treasures of Farming, Mountain and Fishing Villages' the first step towards the further development of Japan, its local communities and its villages."