UN General Assembly
2018

This is also Japan’s mission, rooted in its own history. Other than the coal that supported modern Japan’s industrialization, our nation has had no other resources to speak of. But even though post-war Japan lacked resources, when it devoted itself to reaping the blessings of trade, it succeeded in realizing growth that was called miraculous. Japan was the very first country to prove through its own experience the principle of the relationship that exists between trade and growth and that has now become common sense. Japan has now taken on the mission of imparting the benefits of trade to the world.