Executive members of the World Federation of Acupuncture and Moxibustion Societies (WFAS) are elected in the general assembly (GA), which is held once every four years. In addition, member societies that will host the upcoming WFAS conferences over the next 4 years are determined in the GA.
Japan hosted the 3rd World Congress of Acupuncture and Moxibustion in 1993, but has not been invited to host the WFAS annual conference for the past 20 years. In the 8 th WFAS GA held in the Sydney Convention Centre Darling Harbour, Sydney, Australia on 1 November 2013, Japan was elected as the host country for the 2016 WFAS Annual Conference. Thus, the 2016 WFAS Annual Conference will be held in Tokyo, and hosted by the Japan Society of Acupuncture and Moxibustion (JSAM) and Japanese Traditional Acupuncture and Moxibustion Society (JTAMS).
In the election of Executive Members, Shuichi Katai was elected as vice-president of WFAS and Ikuro Wakayama and Naoto Ishizaki were elected as executive members. The term for executive members is four years. In addition, Kiichiro Tsutani, former vice-president of WFAS, was appointed as honorable vice-president, and Yukio Kurosu, former honorable vice-president, was appointed as advisor.
Academic programs were carried out for three days from 2 November 2013. In the WFAS conferences usually more than half of the papers are presented in Chinese, but in Sydney, most papers were presented in English. There were one invited lecture and 13presentations from Japan.

The WFAS Houston 2016 annual conference was held in the Royal Sonesta Hotel, Houston, Texas, USA from 31 October to 2 November 2014. The theme of the conference was "East Meets West -Shaping the Future of Healthcare", and more than 900 acupuncture practitioners and scientists participated. The number of papers presented was 216, including 6 keynote lectures. Papers from Japan numbered 11.
At the Executive Committee (EC) meeting, 39 of the 76 EC members were present (10 EC members sent a letter of attorney in advance), including 3from Japan. Although Tokyo was approved as a host city of WFAS 2016 last year, we proposed changing the venue to the Tsukuba International Congress Center, which was approved.