Top �� What's up around the Prime Minister �� March, 2004

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Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited Hiroshima Prefecture to visit small and medium-sized enterprises, the Itsukushima Shinto Shrine and others. Prime Minister Koizumi first visited the general manufacturer of food processing machines in Higashi Hiroshima City that is a pioneer corporation that first developed a power-driven rice milling machine in Japan. The company is one of the top corporations and dominates 90 percent of the world's share in rice milling machines and is placed second in the world's share for flour milling machines. Prime Minister Koizumi, upon receiving an explanation on the cutting-edge appliance that screens and eliminates extraneous substances such as stone in grains by the use of light, gave a comment by saying, "It is an unbelievable technology. No wonder it dominates the world." Then, Prime Minister Koizumi visited the Itsukushima Shinto Shrine which is registered as a world heritage, observing places in the Shrine where information is displayed in foreign languages for foreign tourists. In the afternoon, Prime Minister Koizumi visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Genbaku Dome) which is also registered as a world heritage, and had a tour led by Mr. Tadatoshi Akiba, the Mayor of the City of Hiroshima. Prime Minister Koizumi then observed the manufacturing process of Kumano fude (Kumano brush), a traditional art and craft, at the "Fude-no-Sato-Kobo" in Kumano-cho. While Kumano brushes account for 80 percent of the domestic production of brushes, in recent years, production of writing and painting brushes has decreased. Meanwhile, high-quality make-up brushes utilizing the traditional technique have attracted cosmetics manufacturers worldwide, and a wide range of brushes are being manufactured, including brushes used by professional make-up artists. Prime Minister Koizumi felt for himself the texture of the make-up brushes, and with a writing brush wrote "Shun-Pu-Setsu-Jin" (a line from "Shun-Pu-Setsu-Jin, Shu-So-Ji-Shuku" by Issai Sato, a Confucian in the Edo period, which teaches to interact with people with kindness like a spring breeze and correct one's own action strictly like an autumn frost)." Lastly, Prime Minister Koizumi visited a well-established sake brewer in Kure City and observed the brewing process of sake. Reflecting upon his visit, Prime Minister Koizumi gave his comment by saying, "The small and medium-sized enterprises are working hard. Each of them has given me a good idea."