Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has made a speech expressing his honor to be selected as the winner of the Boston Global Forum’s (BGF) World Leader for Cybersecurity Award.
He was one of three leaders honored this year by the BGF. The two others are German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Prime Minister of Vietnam Nguyen Tan Dung, who was presented with the “World Leader for Peace, Security and Development” Award.
According to BGF, the award is presented to individuals who have outstanding contributions to peace and security in their country and in the world.
The winners are selected by a council of well-known academics and officials, from the candidates who are political, media, civil leaders and scholars.
Below is the full text of the speech by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe:
“Welcome to everyone attending the conference. I’m PM Shinzo Abe. This year marks the third anniversary of the launch of the Boston Global Forum. I offer my heartfelt congratulations seeing this conference convene today at such grand scale. I very much appreciate having been chosen to receive the World Leader in Cybersecurity Award. I consider it a great honor. We are now at the advent of an era in which everything will connect to the Internet and information and communication technology will link into and permeate goods and services. Ensuring security in cyberspace – “cybersecurity” – is the indispensable foundation for advancing our utilization of IT and realizing our growth strategy.
It is at the same time a gravely important issue for national security and crisis management. Japan is now preparing for the Ise-Shima Summit in 2016 and the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2020. It is imperative that we take all possible means to ensure cybersecurity so that we can be certain to lead both of these to a successful conclusion.
In light of this, we are now engaged as a nation in all-out effort to reinforce cybersecurity. These include the government’s enactment of the Basic Act on Cybersecurity in November 2014 and a cabinet decision taken in September this year on our new “Cybersecurity Strategy”.
Cyber attacks have been on the increase year after year. We have also begun to see organized, advanced attack techniques that lead to suspicion of state actor involvement. In the future, the threat to the international community are expected to escalate further.
Japan will closely continue to cooperate with the US and other partners in the international community, reliably safeguarding our nation’s important information and property while playing a leading role in achieving the peace and stability of the international community.
It is greatly reassuring to me that the members of the Boston Global Forum are promoting cyber security-related awareness raising activities and fostering discussions in various countries around the world. Today, on Cybersecurity Day, your representatives from all around the world will hold various discussions. I wish to close my remarks with my sincere hope that efforts to build security in cyberspace progress still further, with these discussions as a turning point.”
