At a press conference held after the general meeting, Mr. Sasakawa noted, “With the world’s sixth-largest exclusive economic zone, Japan has abundant seabed resources and renewable energy sources like wind power, and if we can learn to use these effectively the potential for Japan’s resources will increase significantly.” Mr. Miyahara added, “Offshore development is one of the pillars of Japan’s growth strategy, and I hope we will quickly be able to develop human resources for the future. Abundant resources have been confirmed to exist in the seas surrounding Japan, including methane hydrate, the main component in natural gas, hydrothermal deposits with accumulations of gold and silver, and sludge containing rare earth minerals. In addition, as an island nation, Japan’s topography presents a range of possibilities for renewable energy like wind power and wave power. The market for offshore oil and natural gas is estimated to be worth approximately 30 trillion yen annually, of which Japan’s share is roughly 1%, and Japan has less than 0.01% of the 2.3 trillion yen market for offshore wind power generation. This shows that Japan is trailing other countries in these fields, making the cultivation of human resources with technical skills and expertise for offshore development an urgent issue for gaining market share going forward. Looking at the 23 major companies involved in offshore development, however, of the total 15,000 technicians at these companies, only 2,200 are engaged in offshore development. This is because offshore development industries have not been viewed as an attractive field by students, in part because of the absence of programs to connect students with companies and opportunities to gain on-site experience.