AOTS Journal 2018 SPRING No.12 (ENGLISH)

2/18

I would like to wish you a Happy New Year. A revitalized AOTS, after changing its English name in July 2017, has just welcomed its rst new year. AOTS has been devoting itself to conducting various types of human resource development programs, including training in Japan and abroad and dispatching experts/interns overseas. At the same time, 2017 marked a very important year for AOTS as it started new types of relation-ship-building with various local governments and institutions in Japan. As reported in previous issues of our Journal, we concluded MOU on business collaboration and cooperation with ve Japanese nancial institutions while concluding an ‘Overseas Business Alliance’ with Kobe city in August. Overseas, AOTS concluded agreements supporting human resource development of SME promotion organizations in Mexico and Taiwan. As AOTS has been promoting support for SMEs and local economies through various programs, we are seeing growing opportunities to offer our services in HRD, as well as assisting local governments and industrial organizations to promote industry in many parts of Japan, and we are endowed with chances where we can render our help to assist with the mutual economic development of Japan and many countries through our expertise in human resource development. This would not have been possible without the great support and cooperation of the public sector of in and out of Japan including the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Japan’s private sector, and academia, as well as many people from local communities, and I would like to extend my deep sense of gratitude to all those who support us. Domestically, as Tokyo will host the next summer Olympic/Paralympic games in just two years from now, AOTS will celebrate its sixtieth anniversary in 2019, earlier than the Olympic Games. To commemorate this, we are planning to organize the 10th Convention of AOTS Alumni Societies in Tokyo next year. Those societies have all been organized independently by returned trainees from Japan in their respective countries; we can see today their network of 71 cities/regions in 43 countries around the world where they are devoting themselves to contrib-uting to their countries’ economic progress through their acquired technologies and knowledge. I am happy to report to you that there has been steady progress in the scheme to appoint a ‘Monodzukuri Jinzai Ambassador,’ inaugurated in 2016 as a means of activating the Alumni Societies; we are looking forward to seeing its growing role in industrial sectors of respective countries. For this year too, we have a continued commitment to expanding our lines of service through specic programs by the AOTS Research Institute as well as New Global Cooperation in addition to continued implementation of our conventional scheme of human resource devel-opment, all based on our domestic and international human network. We hope for your further support and encouragement throughout this year as well.Message from President Mr. Shinya Kuwayama, PresidentAssociation Overview• NameThe Association for Overseas Technical Cooperation and Sustainable PartnershipsAbbreviated name: AOTS• EstablishedAugust 10, 1959• Activities Provides training for industrial human resources mainly in developing countries as well as dispatches experts mainly to developing countries• Scale of operations Approximately JPY 9,700,000,000 (budget for FY2017) 1) Training Programs in Japan: 220 courses and 4,000 participants2) Overseas Training Programs: 44 courses and 1,170 participants3) Experts Dispatch Programs: 330 experts4) Internship Programs: 70 interns• Total number of participants/experts/interns1) Training Programs in Japan: 186,010 (cumulative total as of FY2016)2) Overseas Training Programs: 199,630 (cumulative total as of FY2016)3) Experts Dispatch Programs: 8,661 (cumulative total as of FY2016)4) Internship Programs: 1,122 (cumulative total as of FY2016)• Ofces1) Japan : Tokyo, Osaka City, and Toyota City2) Overseas: Bangkok, Jakarta, New Delhi, and Yangon