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A novel experience: Japanese
finance minister Sadakazu
Tanigaki addresses the
Inter-American Development
Bank annual meeting in Okinawa
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Okinawa was always a rather improbable place to hold April's annual meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), so perhaps it was not so surprising that this year's event had such an Alice In Wonderland feel to it.
The role of Alice was played by hundreds of Japanese and Korean delegates, who took the opportunity to take their families to the beach while learning about the opportunities of trade with Latin America. Most had never been to an IDB meeting before, which probably made the whole event even curiouser to them than it was to those of the repeat delegates.
But the meetings really did make incredibly little sense on many levels. First, of course, there was the location: it was not unheard-of for people to have passed through seven different airports to...
