Singapore International Foundation

09 Mar 2010

President of the Japan Foundation to visit Singapore

Visits - SIF Distinguished Visitors | Areas of work: Arts & Culture

Japan Foundation President and former Ambassador to Vietnam, South Korea and France to call on Minister George Yeo and Acting Minister Lui Tuck Yew in Singapore.

9 March 2010, Singapore ... President of the Japan Foundation, Ambassador Kazuo Ogoura will be in Singapore to exchange views and ideas with Singaporeans in the arts and culture industry, as well as to find out more about issues of interest to Singapore society.  The Japan Foundation is dedicated to promoting better mutual understanding between Japan and other nations through supporting international cultural exchange projects.

The former ambassador to Vietnam, South Korea and France will be in Singapore from 10 to 12 March as the 23rd Distinguished Visitor of the Singapore International Foundation (SIF).

While in Singapore, Ambassador Oguora will call on Mr George Yeo, Minister for Foreign Affairs, and RADM (NS) Lui Tuck Yew, Acting Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts. He will also meet Professor Tommy Koh, Chairman of the National Heritage Board, and Mr Edmund Cheng, Chairman of the National Arts Council.

Ambassador Ogoura will take part in an informal discussion with academics from the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. The discussion will be hosted by Ambassador Ong Keng Yong, Director of IPS.

Ambassador Ogoura will also meet with students from the Ministry of Education’s Language Elective Programme (Japanese) at Raffles Institution (Junior College). The Japanese Language Elective Programme aims to help students develop advanced proficiency in the language, as well as promote cultural awareness and understanding.

He will also visit the Japan Creative Center (JCC), which recently opened in November 2009. The Japan Foundation works with the JCC on a variety of projects.

Ambassador Ogoura served three years as Director of the Cultural Exchange Department at Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs till 1992. He has also served professorships at Tokyo University and Aoyama Gakuin University, and is currently Special Guest Professor at Meiji University.

A published author, Ambassador Ogoura has written extensively on politics and culture, particularly on cultural diplomacy and Japan’s relations with China and the United States. He has a keen interest in the arts, and has trained as an actor in traditional Japanese Noh theatre.

Since 1995, the SIF, under the Distinguished Visitors Programme (DVP), has brought prominent leaders from the business, political and civil society sectors, as well as other public personalities from around the world, to Singapore. Through the programme, the distinguished visitor has an opportunity to become better acquainted with different facets of Singapore; share thoughts and ideas on issues of mutual interest, not only with his or her direct counterparts but also the larger Singaporean society; and build a personal network of Singaporean friends and contacts that will last beyond the visit. Former SIF distinguished visitors include Her Excellency Chou Bun Eng, Secretary of State, Ministry of Interior of the Kingdom of Cambodia; Mr James Leape, Director General of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF); and most recently Dr Sergey Karaganov, Dean of the School of International Economics and Foreign Affairs of the State University – Higher School of Economics (SU-HSE) in Russia.