Sumitomo Electric Industries : IWCC Directors’ Meeting/Joint Meeting in Bangkok

The International Wrought Copper Council (IWCC), launched in 1953, is an international industrial association for copper fabricators, such as those handling electric wire and copper alloy. In 1968, the Japan Wrought Copper Council (JWCC) was founded and listed in the membership of the IWCC. Since then, Sumitomo Electric has been actively committed to the IWCC in order to raise the status of the industry. I have served as a Director of the IWCC since 2017 and the Vice Chair since 2023. On May 8, I attended the IWCC Directors' Meeting and Joint Meeting, held in Bangkok, Thailand.

The first thing I felt upon my arrival at the airport in Bangkok was the intense heat there. The temperature was around 35 degrees Celsius. With the background of the post-pandemic recovery in the very busy traffic, the atmosphere was heated in many ways.

The directors' meeting, held at Shangri-la Bangkok, was attended by about 20 people, while the joint meeting was held on a larger scale, with more than 100 attendees. The joint meeting draws many people engaged in the industry, including those from the copper and copper alloy semis fabricating industry, and trading companies, in Asia, Europe, and the U.S. This year's meeting featured a wide variety of presentations on, for example, the industry's initiatives toward realizing a carbon-free society and establishing a sustainable society, and on the outlook for future growth of the economy in general centering on the copper industry. The meeting also included active Q&A sessions.

This was the first time for me to attend the directors' meeting after doing so in London last October. I participated in this year's event particularly to give a presentation on the Sumitomo Electric Group's initiatives under the title "Sumitomo Electric's Challenges for Sustainability" at the joint meeting.