Abe inaugurates Indo-Japan cultural centre

Kolkata, Aug 23: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe today said his country was looking up to West Bengal as the gateway to India and expected it to play a major role in cementing the Indo-Japanese relationship.

"Japan looks up to West Bengal as the gateway to India. The Japanese Consulate was set up in Kolkata in 1907, even before the Chinese embassy was established in India," he said while inaugurating 'Rabindra-Okakura Bhavan', an Indo-Japanese cultural centre at Salt Lake, on the city's eastern fringe.

"We expect that West Bengal will play a pivotal role in strengthening ties between these two countries, and I am here to reaffirm that," he said.

Observing that the relation between Japan and Kolkata existed at the 'deepest level', the visiting premier said this was reflected in the writings of Rabindranath Tagore, Swami Vivekananda and other intellectuals.

"Many in Japan are moved by people like Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and Rasbehari Bose and even today Japanese people respect Radhabinod Paul," he said.

"That age-old relation transcended in the modern times to the fields of industry and academics," he said.

"I understand that Mitsubishi Corporation in Haldia will triple its production by 2009 and Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata will start a course with Japanese collaboration," he said.

Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, who was present at the function, gave away the Rabindra Smriti Puraskar to eminent Tagore researcher Professor Kazuo Azuma.

The Japanese Prime Minister, who was on a day's visit to the city, will leave for Malayasia before attending a few other programmes.

UNI