Mayor reports on trip to Japan

Logansport Mayor Mike Fincher is sending back regular reports from his trip to Japan.

Fincher is accompanied by consultant Larry Ingraham, and the trip is sponsored by the Logansport-Cass County Economic Development Foundation.

Sunday, Sept. 2

Hello everyone. We made it to Tokyo, Japan. We got here in about 13 1/2 hours. The flight was uneventful. The seat next to me was empty so I could stretch out a little more.

Larry Ingraham and I landed on separate flights at different terminals. I got on the bus to take me the two-hour ride to the hotel, and at the next stop, Larry got on the same bus.

Not much more to report. Work starts tomorrow.   

Monday, Sept. 3

Met with Mr. Takamichi Tawara, managing director of variety meat sales, and manager and team leader Mr. Naoto Tamai.

The office is on the 10th floor of the Akasaka Daiichi building in Tokyo. It was about a 10-minute taxi ride from the hotel. We discussed hog production mostly from Tyson Plant in Logansport

Mr. Tawara has visited the Tyson plant in Logansport several times. I invited him to visit with LEDF on his next trip to Indiana. We also discussed the negotiations concerning beef being imported to Japan from United States.

As I understand it, U.S. beef is wanted in Japan but negotiations between the U.S. and Japan have broken down.

Mr. Tawara indicated that Japan would import several million metric tons of beef to Japan if their differences could be resolved. Now, I believe, Mr. Tawara said most often beef in Japan is coming from Australia.

After lunch with Mr. Tawara and Mr. Tamai we took a cab to visit Kajima Corp., a larger construction and site selection company that builds Japanese plants around the world. Mr. Tawara repeated what he had stated during the last visit that Tyson pork from Logansport is the best quality of all pork imported to Japan.

Then we took another cab ride to a site selection construction company. We met with four gentlemen there — Katsumi Shibasaki, general manager of business development; Seiji Ishibashi, assistant general manager (we met with him on the last trip); Tatsuhiko Gonda, general manager of business development in Europe and USA regions, and Mr. Mitsuo Okada, assistant general manager of business development in Europe and USA regions. They built the Subaru plant in Lafayette, as well as other auto manufacturing plants in Kentucky, North Carolina and Mississippi. Mr. Sibasaki asked for information concerning our industrial park and the airport. The meeting lasted about 30 minutes.

Our next cab ride took us to Mitsui & Co. Ltd. They are on the 14th floor of a 30-story office building. We met Mr. Takaaki Kakudoh, deputy general manager of business planning and coordination department, and Ms. Yasuko Fukutani. They have offices in 150 cities around the world. They deal in everything from iron and steel production, shipping, agri-business, electronics and research and development of every kind. Mitsui is associated with the Anderson’s ethanol plant in Clymers. We discussed the area around Clymers and other businesses that might compliment the area.

Tuesday, Sept. 4

We left the hotel by cab to the rail station to meet with representatives of the Tochigi Prefecture. Tochigi Prefecture is the sister state to Indiana, and we have been working on finding a sister city for Logansport. Mr. Hemuki, the Director of the Indiana office in Tokyo, has been working on this as well.

We arrived in Tochigi around 10 a.m. and were met at the rail station by Shinya Takagi, assistant to the governor of Tochigi. We rode by limo to his office, about a 15-minute ride. Upon arriving at his office, we met Mr. Masashi Kuwana, director international affairs division of the Tochigi government. Mr. Kuwana introduced us to Tatsumi Kurkawa, Junichi Kozaki, Jun-ichi Sato and a young American named Kent Mullens.

We immediately started discussing the sister city program, and they informed us that they were talking to a community of 40,000 called Mibu (pronounced me-boo). It has a regional hospital, a toy museum, is known for its agricultural development. They felt it would be a good fit with Logansport.

These people did their homework. They know about the Ivy Tech campus, about the Hoosier Heartland Corridor, they even knew how many grandchildren I had.

They talked about student exchange, teacher exchange, and other cultural exchanges that we might be interested in. They took us to lunch, and after lunch, we toured the new government offices that are in the process of being built.

After the tour, we met with Gov. Fukuda. He was as informed as everyone else. We talked for about an hour and discussed many issues about the future and working closer together. I presented him with a city of Logansport flag and a portfolio with the city’s seal on it. We left around 4 p.m. for the train ride back to Tokyo.

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