[Provisional Translation]

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe attended the presentation ceremony of the Healthy Society Award held at a hotel in Tokyo.

The Prime Minister said in his address,

“I am deeply pleased to see the 11th presentation ceremony of the Healthy Society Award being held with such grandeur and so many people in attendance. Also, I would like to express my congratulations to all the recipients of this prestigious Healthy Society Award.

All the recipients have worked for long years carrying out selfless, community-based activities to provide support for those who need it. Their activities include work in various extremely important fields, such as measures to address intractable illness, medical care in developing countries, education volunteers, support for victims of violence, and radiation-related medical care.

This award honors individuals who have made contributions to others and worked to establish a healthy society, beyond their official responsibilities. Today, I am reminded anew of the nobility of this award.

The creation of a society where people are healthy and lead long lives is a common desire shared by all of humanity. However, we cannot expect someone else to create such a society and hand it over to all of us. Each one of us must exert efforts and exercise ingenuity through our own unique roles and we must all support one another. I believe that doing so is the only way to develop such a society. All of the recipients of the Award today have surely experienced exactly this. I would like to express my profound respect for all your achievements to date.

As a result of the efforts of our predecessors, Japan has built a universal health insurance system that is preeminent in the world, and realized a world-leading standard for insurance premium payment. We have the responsibility to carefully pass this system on to the next generation. To that end, we will establish comprehensive regional care systems. These systems will enable people to continue to live for as long as possible in the regions they are used to living in, even if they come to need medical care or nursing care. In addition, we will also implement measures to make steady progress towards the enhancement and stabilization of social security, such as substantially advancing measures to address both dementia and intractable illnesses.

Another important issue is to utilize our past experience in order to contribute to the improvement of the standards for health insurance in developing countries. We hope that universal health coverage will spread beyond national borders so that all people can access necessary medical care, no matter where in the world they live. I would truly like Japan to build on its strengths in order to contribute to achieving societies where people can live healthy lives.

In collaboration with all of you who are active in the medical care and health fields, we will pool our wisdom and technology to provide support to meet the needs of various countries and regions.”