Cabinet ministers and their Pacific counterparts decided Saturday to hold the next leaders' summit of the Pacific Islands Forum in Fukushima Prefecture in May 2015, Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida announced.
The decision was made as participants from the 16-member forum discussed maritime order, resource management and new ways to cooperate in trade and investment, while taking stock of progress on pledges made at a triennial summit of the forum's chiefs in Okinawa Prefecture in May 2012.
The next leaders' summit, set for May 22, 2015, is expected to take place at Spa Resort Hawaiians, a leisure complex in Iwaki. Kishida told reporters the event will be a good chance to demonstrate Tohoku's reconstruction from the 2011 quake and tsunami that flattened coastal areas of Fukushima and other northeastern prefectures.