• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

• 
• 

 
On November 22, 2018, 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 opening address,
 
“Allow me to offer some words upon this Gathering of ‘Discover the Treasures of Farming, Mountain and Fishing Villages.’
 
This event marks the fifth anniversary. Each and every year, when I listen to those impassioned speeches from all of you on your products that have been made with great care and are the pride and treasure of your hometowns, I am always astonished by how each district in Japan is truly overflowing with wonderful treasures.
 
Above all, the most important thing is to introduce these local charms throughout Japan and the world, and share them with as many people as possible.
 
Last year I shared the same story at this gathering. One of the examples of how many hidden treasures there are in Japan that locals are not necessarily aware of is the story of Motonosumi Inari Shrine in my home town  of Nagato City. The shrine has rows of red torii gates leading all the way to the sea. This used to be a small, rustic shrine that had at most a few thousand visitors a year. Then it happened to be featured on CNN, and became popular as an Instagrammable site. As a result, an astonishing 1 million people visited the shrine last year and the head priest shared his surprise at finding the coins of nearly 100 countries in the shrine’s donation box. This summer, I visited the shrine myself to see if it really was as popular as had been reported. Sure enough, there were in fact many people from around the world visiting the shrine.
 
Thanks to this, a record-breaking 2 million tourists visited Nagato City last year, and as shops and parking lots have been opened in front of the shrine, a great deal of income has flowed to the local people, and local specialties are flying off the shelves. The shrine has also been covered by other overseas media outlets, and, as a result, this wonderful story has been shared around the world.
 
I am happy to say that initiatives led by high school students in Aichi Prefecture and Fukuoka Prefecture were chosen and their representatives are joining us today. Together with young people who will lead the next generation, we have begun a truly heartening initiative that will further refine the treasures of Japan’s regions and promote them even more actively around the world.
 
I hope that you will continue to make great progress, full of pride and confidence that you can reinvigorate your community much more. I, too, will work with you all and do my utmost to protect Japan’s beautiful farming, mountain and fishing villages and create more vigorous communities. Let us discover the many treasures that still lie dormant in Japan and create new treasures as well. I would like to ask all of you to continue your all-out efforts, with confidence in yourselves. I believe that if, through this gathering, we learn more about the many wonderful initiatives taking place throughout Japan and work to spread these efforts further, then each community in Japan will surely gain even more energy.
 
I am looking forward to speaking with all of you afterwards. Thank you very much for taking the time to visit the Prime Minister’s Office today.”