Foreign Minister Koichiro Genba met with members of all-girl idol group AKB48 on Thursday and thanked them for taking part in a campaign to attract Chinese tourists and dispel harmful rumors about the safety of Japanese food products.
The "Vibrant Japan" campaign will start Feb. 16 in Beijing, before moving on to Shanghai toward the end of the month and Hong Kong in late March.
During his meeting with three of AKB48's members — Tomomi Itano, Rie Kitahara and Yui Yokoyama — Genba, a Fukushima native, expressed his gratitude for the group's support of disaster-hit areas in the northeast and said he hoped its participation in the campaign will help deepen ties with China.