Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda attended the banquet of the 18th International Conference on the Future of Asia held in Tokyo.

The International Conference on the Future of Asia is a large-scale international conference where political leaders and top business executives in Asia exchange various opinions and views.

The Prime Minister said in his speech, "In order to bring a prosperous future to Asia, we all need to work hard to develop the common basis for prosperity, in addition to efforts by individual countries.
Realizing both fiscal soundness and economic growth is the basic precondition for prosperity. Especially, in a society where the population structure is aging, awareness on the development of the environment for promoting economic growth should grow even stronger as a universal issue for all countries.
The Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, aimed to establish a high-level economic partnership, should increase its importance as a basis to promote economic growth within the region.
In addition, in order to pursue prosperity, the stability of the entire region becomes indispensable.
The basis for the rule-making in the region is open regional cooperation. Effort to strengthen the regional connectivity, which is currently being put forth with ASEAN countries, is one of such examples. Further regional development can be expected by expanding this effort via Myanmar, where the reform process is underway, to the fast-growing South Asian region.
Japan will be continuously engaged in its multilayered effort to establish order and rules in the region, increase the security of Asia-Pacific region, and serve active roles in ensuring regional stability, by using various occasions including the East Asia Summit Meeting and APEC."