10 July, 2015 at “Ukrinform” news agency a roundtable meeting on “Partnership between Ukraine and Japan in the information sphere” with the Minister of Information Policy of Ukraine Yurii Stets and the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan Shigeki Sumi was held. The event was attended by MPs of Ukraine, members of the Expert Council under the MIP, the representatives of diplomatic sphere, famous scientists and experts.
Yurii Stets noted that the question of cooperation with Japan is extremely important for Ukraine. “Our dialogue with Japan has only started. This is the first event of roundtable meetings that we plan to hold in the regions of Ukraine. I hope it will help not only MPs of Ukraine, but also representatives of national journalistic environment to gain some experience”- said the Minister.
Yurii Stets added that current cooperation between two countries is not widely known in our country as more attention of domestic media coverage is given to cooperation between Ukraine and the European Union and the United States. “I think it’s a gap that we have to fill,” – said the Minister.
During his speech, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to Ukraine Shigeki Sumi praised the initiative of the Ministry of Information Policy to deepen cooperation between our two countries. He assured the participants that Japan respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, and welcomes the desire of the state to reform. “Japan will spare no effort to solve Ukraine’s problems”, – said Shigeki Sumi.
During the discussion of prospects of cooperation between two countries, the Deputy Minister Artem Bidenko said that the MIP considers essential to learn the experience of Japan in many aspects. “In particular, we are interested in the way Japan built its own system of security, defense, and information”, – said Artem Bidenko.
The Deputy Minister pointed out that now the Japanese media are lobbying Russian information, while publications about Ukraine are almost absent. “This is what we need to fix”, – he said.
The participants were unanimous in opinion on the need to learn the experience of Japan in many aspects. Among the practical steps in establishing partnership between Ukraine and Japan in the information area the head of the NTUU “KPI” Ukrainian-Japanese Center Yurii Kushnariov suggested that Ukrainian media focus more on Japan, to pay attention to the work of the Embassy of Japan in Ukraine, and to cover the details of political, financial and humanitarian support provided by Japan to our country.
In addition, Yurii Kushnariov stressed the importance of promoting the involvement of leading analysts and experts in this matter as the credibility of information is crucial for gaining citizens’ trust. Director of the UAJC also urged Ukrainian media to spread the news from Japan directly from original sources, without referring to Russians. “We are shutting down Russian channels, we stop showing Russian films, but even leading Ukrainian media publish news from Japan based on materials of TASS or RT», – said the director.