Arab News Japan

DUBAI: Sami Ghassab Alzamanan, ambassador of Kuwait to Japan attended a ceremony in Tokyo on the occasion of the anniversary of diplomatic relations between Kuwait and Japan and to commemorate the establishment of the Takanawa Gateway Hydrogen Station on Feb 28. 

The reception took place at the Eneos Takanawa Gateway Hydrogen station in Tokyo and was attended by SAITO Takeshi, chairman of the Japan-Kuwait society and representative director and president of Eneos Holdings, inc, is one of Japan’s biggest energy companies and virtually by MORINO Yasunari, the ambassador of Japan to Kuwait.

The Japan-Kuwait society was estbalished in 1965, four years after the establishment of diplomatic ties between Japan and Kuwait. Japan was among the first to establish an organization to take the initiative of promoting business and industrial exchanges between the two countries.

Since then, ambassador Alzamanan said, the Japan-Kuwait Society has played a major role in considering the bilateral relationship not only through industrial and technical exchanges, but also through exchange of people between the two countries.

The two countries have close economic relations with the trade balance between them reaching over $7 billion. Kuwait is one of the largest oil exporters to Japan.

ENEOS, which has long utilized hydrogen generation technology to produce hydrogen to desulphurize crude petroleum, has been producing and dispensing carbon-free hydrogen at filling stations since 2020.

Japan has been a leader in hydrogen energy development internationally and government strategy is targeting bringing the cost below gas power generation and boosting volume to 3 million tons by 2030 and 20million tons by 2050.

Overall, there are already a total of 150 production and dispensing stations across the country, of which 50 belong to ENEOS’ network.

The ceremony started with a welcome announcement by SAITO followed by a virtual speech from MORINO solidifying and celebrating the establishment of bilateral diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Both countries share many common grounds and have always been committed to the international efforts for conflict resolutions and humanitarian assistance.

They had also proven to be great allies in the past assisting each other in hardships such as Japan’s contribution in the calamity of the gulf war and Kuwait’s support during the great east Japan earthquake.

As well as the ambassadors ,the ceremony was attended by several Japanese member companies of the Japan-Kuwait society.