At the outset, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the distinguished participants for attending the meeting of the Advisory Panel on National Security and Defense Capabilities during your busy schedule.

The primary responsibility of the Government is to secure national security. The security environment surrounding Japan is growing increasingly severe. In this context, we must promote diplomatic and defense policies in an even more integrated manner in order to ensure national security to the fullest extent possible. In addition, we need to  develop more strategic and structured policies on national security, while identifying the national interests from a long-term perspective, so that Japan can maintain good relationships with the international community and continue to promote a prosperous and peaceful society.

In today's international community, no country can maintain its peace and safety by itself. The Abe Administration will proactively contribute to securing peace, stability and prosperity of the world under the banner of proactive contribution to peace, based on a belief in international cooperation. Against this backdrop, I have decided to formulate Japan's first "National Security Strategy" as a basic guideline for ensuring national security, which centers on diplomatic policies and defense policies. I intend to make such strategy that gives directions for other policies related to national security.

In addition, our defense capabilities are the manifestation of our will and capabilities to defend the peace and independence of our nation. In order to ensure national security, we will review the National Defense Program Guidelines so as to steadily build defense capabilities that can adequately respond to required roles of the Self-Defense Forces. This way, we can strengthen our defense posture, corresponding to the changes in the security environments.

I believe that our discussion on both the National Security Strategy and the National Defense Program Guidelines in this meeting will lead to the development of more comprehensive national security policies.

I sincerely hope that the distinguished experts here will engage in intensive discussions and offer us your insights, drawing upon your immense knowledge and experiences on diplomatic and security policy.

Thank you very much.