SAO PAULO, BRAZIL.- Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi (R) walks past an embalmed ounce during a visit at the Historical Museum of Japanese Culture in Brazil, 15 September 2004, in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Koizumi is in Brazil for a three-day official visit prior to continue to Mexico and the United States. 

 

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi left for his visit to Central and South America and to attend the General Assembly of the United Nations on the government plane from Haneda Airport on the night of September 13. He arrived in Sao Paulo in Brazil, the first country of his visit, on the morning of September 14 (Japan time: night of September 14).

Soon after his arrival, Prime Minister Koizumi visited the site near the basin of the Tiete River, where restoration works are being conducted under the environmental improvement project funded through yen loans provided by Japan. Prime Minister Koizumi observed the construction site with Mr. Geraldo Alckmin, the Governor of the State of Sao Paulo, and planted a tree in commemoration of this occasion.

 

In the afternoon, Prime Minister Koizumi viewed from a helicopter the vast expanse of the sugarcane fields and orange grove in Pradopolis, where many of the Japanese immigrants settled in the beginning of the 20th century. He dropped a bouquet of flowers from the air to commemorate the unimaginable hardships experienced by those first immigrants. During his observation, he spied the words "Welcome Prime Minister Koizumi" written on the ground of an athletic field. Although it was not on his schedule, Prime Minister Koizumi landed there and talked with the children and grandchildren of the immigrants.

 

Afterwards, Prime Minister Koizumi met and talked with former participants in the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme, which invites youth from overseas to participate in international exchange and foreign language education throughout Japan, and representatives of leading Japanese companies in Brazil.