{"id":437,"date":"2026-05-22T05:05:40","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T05:05:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hawaiimovinginsider.com\/?p=437"},"modified":"2026-05-22T05:05:40","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T05:05:40","slug":"leaders-celebrate-hawaii-japan-sister-partnerships-at-waikiki-summit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hawaiimovinginsider.com\/?p=437","title":{"rendered":"Leaders celebrate Hawaii-Japan sister partnerships at Waikiki summit"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<section>\n<p>HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) &#8211; Hawaii has a new sister state relationship with Japan. <\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/hawaiimovinginsider.com\/?p=436\">Fallen Maui police officer added to county law enforcement memorial<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Okayama prefecture became Hawaii\u2019s seventh sister state from Japan, following Okinawa, Hiroshima, Ehime, Fukuoka, Hokkaido and Yamaguchi.<\/p>\n<p>The governors of Hawaii and Okayama celebrated with a signing at the Hawaii-Japan Sister State &amp; Sister City Summit on May 21 at the Hilton Hawaiian Village.<\/p>\n<p>The event brought together governors, mayors, and business and community leaders from across Japan this week to expand long-standing ties with their Hawaii counterparts and shape the future together.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cWe really wanted to be as close as possible to Hawaii,\u201d said Okayama Governor Ryuta Ibaragi. \u201cThis is such a beautiful, wonderful place to come, and now from now on, I can come to Hawaii for the job.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEach time we do these, we bring more leadership partnerships. We get ideas from different regions. One region works on energy, another may work on tourism, another on the environment,\u201d said Hawaii Gov. Josh Green. \u201cA lot of our best ideas have come from the relationships we have with Japan.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ibaragi said he\u2019s excited to introduce Hawaii residents to his home.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOkayama Prefecture is very famous for the fruit, the peach and grapes are the best,\u201d Ibaragi said. \u201cSome people claim that other peaches are as good as peaches from Okayama, but they\u2019re not lying, but they\u2019re wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFour colleges in my prefecture has the connection with four different universities in Hawaii,\u201d Ibaragi added. \u201cI would like to expand that cooperation and I would like to go into high schools. I would like to make as many sister schools between local high schools and high schools in Hawaii so that these schools can exchange students to learn Hawaiian culture, English, and so forth, and maybe we could offer something for Hawaiian people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/hawaiimovinginsider.com\/?p=434\">Man charged after allegedly trying to run over police officers with vehicle<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Green said meetings like the ones taking place at the summit are more than talk story sessions, but also ways to exchange ideas and come up with action plans.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith Fukuoka, they have special expertise in what they call One Health, which is a global philosophy that health is both health like physical health for human beings It\u2019s about the environment\u2019s health and the health of other animal species, and that of course is relevant because disease can spread between us and animals, and it\u2019s an impactful way to look at healthcare,\u201d Green said.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cThey started the idea and then we did a memorandum of understanding a couple of years ago and now we\u2019re we did a memorandum of understanding a couple of years ago and now we\u2019re rolling out principled policy that\u2019s based on one health like our climate impact fee, the green fee, takes a healthy environment, does prevention to prevent future disasters,\u201d Green explained. \u201cThat is an example of how we actually took some of these meetings and relationships and turned it into policy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The summit is hosted by Japan-America Society of Hawaii (JASH) and the state Department of Business, Economic Development &amp; Tourism (DBEDT).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBuilding on the extraordinary success of the inaugural 2023 Summit, the largest Hawaii-Japan international convening in more than two decades, this next chapter promises even greater impact,\u201d said Reyna Kaneko, JASH president.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJapan is Hawaii\u2019s most important global partners and this summit creates an opportunity to identify practical areas for collaboration.\u201d<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Breakout sessions focus on six different topics: <\/p>\n<p>There will also be a marketplace that is free for the public to attend, featuring a variety of vendors selling products and promoting travel to Japan.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/hawaiimovinginsider.com\/?p=433\">Two workers injured in downed cable incident in Kailua<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Visit jashawaii.org for more information.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The event brought together governors, mayors, and leaders to expand long-standing ties with their Hawaii counterparts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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