The G7 Hiroshima Summit came to a successful close yesterday. I would like to convey my profound respects to Prime Minister Kishida, the relevant ministers, and those government officials who worked on the preparations for the meetings. I felt the dynamism of diplomacy throughout the Summit.

It is significant that the leaders expressed a strong commitment to rejecting any unilateral change of the status quo by force anywhere in the world and to upholding the rules-based free and open international order. I firmly believe that President Zelensky's participation in person at the session on international peace and stability further strengthened the solidarity among the G7 and provided the leaders, including those of the countries invited to the summit, with a good opportunity to deepen their understanding of the situation in Ukraine.

As the world becomes increasingly fragmented, it is important that the leaders of the developed countries agreed to strengthen their engagement with partners including developing countries, which would be the most affected by a divided world. It is also significant that it was Hiroshima where a vision was delivered for taking a realistic and pragmatic approach toward the ideal of a world without nuclear weapons.

We commend the emphasis on the importance of strengthening the rules-based multilateral trading system, as well as the G7 leaders' encouragement of all countries including developing ones to support "Principles on resilient and reliable supply chains." The G7's message of cooperation in fostering free, fair, and mutually beneficial economic and trade relations is fundamentally aligned with the idea of the "Free and Fair Trade and Investment Club" included in the B7 Tokyo Summit Joint Recommendations, and we look forward to further progress at the upcoming Trade Minister's Meeting scheduled for October.

Regarding climate change, we appreciate the G7 leaders' agreements to cooperate with developing countries and to pursue various pathways, as well as to expand renewable energy and to utilize nuclear energy, hydrogen, and ammonia, etc., while ensuring energy security and sustainable economic growth. In addition, the agreement on integrated approaches to Green Transformation (GX), circular economies, and biodiversity conservation is also noteworthy.

Furthermore, it is an important step forward that the G7 endorsed the establishment of the Institutional Arrangement for Partnership (IAP) to realize "Data Free Flow with Trust" (DFFT), which Japan has spearheaded since the G20 Osaka Summit in 2019. We expect concrete results from the IAP in the future.

We sincerely hope that the G7 leaders will translate the agreements made at the Summit into action in a prompt manner. Meanwhile, Keidanren will continue to work with the other B7 member organizations to prevent the world from fragmenting further.