Tottori Prefecture will finally enter the crabbing season. The ban on the fishing of queen crabs will be lifted on November 6, and the fishing season for matsuba crabs will continue until next March, and until next January for parent crabs. I strongly hope and expect that the people of Japan will enjoy Tottori’s crabs and that the fishery operators will operate safely and enjoy good catches.

 We are now arranging policies toward the prefectural assembly’s November session. Since the development of the national supplementary budget is extremely unclear, we will compile our supplementary budget to be proposed in November on a two-stage basis. At first, we will focus our deliberation on strengthening the earthquake resistance of prefectural facilities, which the prefecture will manage independently; emergency loans to deal with the plunging rice price, which is urgently needed; and the like. In the next stage, we will consider our full-fledged economy measures while monitoring the development of the national supplementary budget.

 A variety of national events are planned to be held in our prefecture pretty soon, as exemplified by “the National Kote-e Namako Wall (special plastering techniques) Summit in Tottori 2010” or “the National Shallot Summit Tottori Conference”.

 With an eye to the coming end of my term as prefectural governor next April, I made up my mind to run in the next Tottori gubernatorial election. Over the course of my first term, the Japan Sea Rim exchanges have been developed, Tottori Prefecture has been nominated as the venue of the International Manga Summit, and an electric automobile plant has been launched in our prefecture. I think it will be irresponsible if I quit the prefectural administration now. I also think it necessary for me to continue and develop these projects myself. Although the situation is unclear and unstable in the national political arena, I’ll take “Let’s create our future all together” as my motto and work on creating our future and break through the stagnation together with all the prefectural residents.  As my goals for the next term, I’m thinking of items such as realization of the prefectural administration as a partner of prefectural residents and regions, industrial development, job security, enhanced medical care and revitalization of hilly and mountainous areas, human resource development by means of the introduction of Tottori’ version of educational system, and the creation of the era in which people will be proud of Tottori in a very real sense.　As for specific policy items, however, I would like to develop ideas through dialogue with the prefectural residents.  In order to use the strengths of our prefecture to the fullest, it will be necessary for me to engage in activities without being biased about the framework of political parties, I think. That’s why I’m planning to conduct the election campaign “from the standpoint of a kind of prefectural party” without support from specific political parties.