“When magnolia blooms” Letter from Ambassador in April

Dear Friends,
   
    When magnolia blooms, Copenhagen sees cherry blossoms in full bloom. I hope that this letter will find you well. In April, Copenhagen Sakura Festival started again (although on line), restaurants and large shops resumed, and more than one out of five persons finished free vaccination voluntarily. Cultural and art activities are scheduled to begin again partly in May. All these indicate a slight sign of hope under challenging circumstances.

     After such a long period of lockdown, one is always concerned about economic situation. According to the April economic forecast by IMF, economic recovery is expected this year despite some uncertainty. Growth rates for 2021 are as follows (2020 figures in brackets); world 6.0% (▲3.3%), Euro zone 4.4% (▲6.6%), Japan 3.3% (▲4.8%), Denmark 2.8% (▲3.3%) and the US 6.4% (▲3.5%). World Economic Outlook, April 2021: Managing Divergent Recoveries (imf.org)

    Apart from the statistics, what we find in daily life through conversations with Danish colleagues from both government and private sectors is common desires between Denmark and Japan for the earliest possible normalization of economic activities by overcoming challenges of COVID-19. Most people still work from home. There seem to be different degrees of negative impacts on different sectors of economy. For example, the negative impacts have been rather weak in manufacturing, construction, electric appliances and so on. Considerable damages have been given on hotel, tourism, restaurants, cultural businesses among others.

    I saw a Japanese news programme on TV the other day, and heard that the most sold goods during the corona pandemic were air purifiers, humidifiers and so on. I chuckled to myself half bitterly, recalling my purchase of these items a few days ago when the old devices completed their missions. “I am very Japanese even living in a foreign country.” Some interesting episodes about popular goods in Denmark is the one I heard from a Japanese colleague that he was able to sell Japanese slippers pretty well in Copenhagen by explaining Japanese customs for students to wear two different slippers to classroom and toilets after putting their shoes in each one’s school box at the entrance of school. Another story was about one of the world highest consumptions of sweets such as chocolate per capita in Denmark (with a footnote to warn that we should take care of our health).
 
    Between 22-23 April, Climate Summit was hosted by the US. Mr. SUGA Yoshihide, Prime Minister of Japan and Ms. Mette FREDERIKSEN, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Denmark together with about 40 leaders from the world participated. The major purpose of the Climate Summit was to enhance international cooperation to mitigate global warming and discussion on green transition as a possible ignition to recover economy after corona challenges was a part of the entire discussion at the Summit. Prime Minister SUGA stated that Japan will reduce 46% of GHG emission by 2030, which is about 70% higher target from the previous one, and that the government of Japan will implement sufficient stimulus measures to encourage companies to invest further by making the utmost use of carbon neutral electricity sources such as renewable energy. 100181623.pdf (mofa.go.jp) Prime Minister Frederiksen said that we are confident that we can do it because we have to do what we should do for climate. She stated to the world that Danish enterprises can provide green solutions. In fact, there are specific business opportunities between Denmark and Japan such as offshore wind power generation, hydrogen energy and so on.

    The pleasant news from Augusta where magnolia also blooms this month was Mr. MATSUYAMA Hideki’s victory at the US Masters’ Golf Championship. Then, from Los Angeles, another good news came, Oscar Prizes for the Danish films “Another Round (Druk)” and “Sound of Metal”!!
    Japan is now heading for the Golden Week, long spring holidays. Emergency situation was declared for Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and Hyogo between 25 April and 11 May. Japan will try its best to contain spread of virus. Step by step, vaccination does proceed in Japan as well. In the Kingdom of Denmark there are about 1,600 Japanese nationals. The Embassy of Japan will diligently continue to provide COVID-19 related information to every Japanese national in Denmark, Greenland and Faroe Island and try to maintain close communications with the Danish government authorities concerned.
 
    I look forward to seeing you in this column next month again. Please take good care of yourself.