While the March 11 disasters devastated the Tohoku region and added another challenge to a nation already troubled with social and economic malaise, the crisis can be turned into a chance for revival, lawmakers and experts said Thursday.
"Japan is now in the midst of a national crisis. This is a serious challenge. . . . But I think that any crisis offers us a chance at the same time," Motohisa Furukawa, state minister in charge of national strategy, told the G1 Global Conference 2011, whose theme was "Rebirth of Japan."
"In the process of reconstruction and rebirth from the disaster, we'd like to create a new economic and social structure, and the world will follow as a new model in the future," Furukawa said in an opening speech for the event at Globis University's Tokyo campus.