The Ninth Working Level Meeting was held in Tomsk on June 27th (Fri.), 2014.

Mr. Alexei Knyazev, Vice Governor of the Tomsk Region, gave the following speech as a welcoming address.

“We are glad to welcome you at this working-level meeting. On behalf of the Governor of Tomsk Region, Sergey Anatolievich Zhvachkin, we are honored and glad to host such distinguished guests here. We are intensively preparing for September when we will be welcoming important visitors from 12 member cities. We want everything to be organized at a high level and make our guests satisfied with their visit to Tomsk in September. We would like to provide constructive discussions and interesting topics. We want to show our city, our region, which we really love. Our city is the most northern member of the Asian Network of Major Cities. But we have people living here with warm hearts and that is why we are sure that everybody visiting Tomsk will feel themselves comfortable here. So, let’s start.”

Tomsk became an ANMC21 member city at the Eleventh Plenary Meeting held in Singapore in 2012. Since then, commencing with its dispatch of a team to the Asia Junior Sports Exchange Games, Tomsk has proactively participated in ANMC21 projects, and deepened its exchanges with other member cities. In that Tomsk shall host the plenary meeting for the first time, the Vice Governor's speech indicated the city's strong desire to make the event a success.
At the working level meeting on this occasion, we had discussions about the Policy Dialogue themes that represent the basis of plenary meeting topics. Proposals regarding new suggestions were also considered. Additionally, we inspected the special economic zone that is planned to be a plenary meeting fieldwork destination, and confirmed the order of inspection to be used at the actual plenary meeting, etc. Unfortunately, on this occasion only three cities (Tomsk, Ulaanbaatar and Tokyo) participated in the working level meeting, however, in preparing for September's plenary meeting, they were able to confirm matters in precise detail.

As an aside, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) staff members who attended the meeting were able to visit a location with strong links to Tokyo. That is the Tomsk Region's only judo dojo (training hall).
When we visited the dojo, there were already about 20 children eagerly applying themselves to training. Under the strict instruction of their coaches, the children were intensely focused. Throughout the dojo there was a resounding "thump" as bodies clashed, and the all of us were overwhelmed by this impact.
When we see the judo outfits of the children training more closely, we found some children had their names written in Japanese on their outfits. . From the coaches who kindly took time off training to respond to our questions, we heard that the children with the Japanese names had been representatives at the Asia Junior Sports Exchange Games held in Tokyo last year.  There was also a banner in the dojo that had been created through student cooperation with Tokyo high school students, etc.; we could see the fact that the children still treasured the exchanges they had experienced in Tokyo.  we departed the dojo hoping that children's sports exchanges will be promoted in the future as well, and that the ties among children in different Asian cities will deepen further.

It is planned that the Thirteenth Plenary Meeting of ANMC21 will be held in Tomsk in one months' time. By discussing issues common to each city, and actively sharing the results thus far achieved, we anticipate that the participating member cities will find the plenary meeting very rewarding.