The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has started distributing PR footage of the capital to TV stations in Asian countries as part of the effort to raise its international profile.
The first video, on the elite Tokyo Fire Department Hyper Rescue Team, is being aired beginning this week on news programs in Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and India in their local languages, according to the metropolitan government.
"We started with what we can do" to improve overseas public relations activities, said Noriko Naito, chief of the PR division in the Citizens and Cultural Affairs Bureau. "And that is to provide a few minutes of footage to Southeast Asian countries and India" with the cooperation of a Japanese TV station.