Daily Texan Staff
The vice governor of the district containing Austin's Japanese sister city, Oita, called on Austin's business leaders Monday to help enhance Oita Prefecture's cultural and business ideas.
Lecturing on his plan to encourage international cooperation, Kunio Toyama said he is encouraging the citizens of Oita Prefecture to create products that can be marketed internationally.
"We have to inspire them to produce specialties of their local districts so they can be internationally recognized," Toyama said through the aid of a translator.
He said Austin's role as a sister city should be engaging in cultural, governmental and business idea exchanges with Oita City, so that both can improve their societies.
"Oita has been interacting with the world in a mutually beneficial and mutually understanding relationship," Toyama said. "I hope we are mutual friends and the relationship will last for generations."
Lawrence Graham, associate vice president for the University's International Program, said the relationship can enhance both cities' high-tech businesses. Oita City is home to Toshiba's semiconductor factory, the largest in Japan.
"Our primary emphasis has been to promote good relations," Graham said. "The business focus is on high technology, promoting trade for software and hardware technology."
According to U.S. Department of Commerce statistics for 1999, 30.7 percent of all Japanese exports went to the United States, while Japan bought 21.7 percent of U.S. exports. Computer equipment, electronics, and medical and scientific instruments were among the top goods traded.
Since 1990 Oita City, located on Japan's southern most island, has been one of Austin's sister cities. It is an entity of Sister Cities International, a nonprofit organization that coordinates relationships between cities around the world.
Monday's gathering marked the 10th anniversary of the sister-city relationship.
Ron Aqua, chairman of the Austin-Oita Sister City Committee, a volunteer group that organizes the cities' activities, said the two cities engage in cultural and educational exchange.
Some of the activities the two cities engage in include exchange programs for students, government and business interns, and marathon participants in the annual Oita International Wheelchair Marathon and Austin's Motorola Marathon.
Aqua said the relationship will enhance Austin's place in the global community.
"These days we think globally and act globally," Aqua said. "Hardly any aspect of our culture is not intercepted with something going on in the rest of the world it affects our daily life, business life and cultural life."
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