New Delhi, Sep 22 A delegation of Japanese parliamentarians from the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) have met Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri and both sides held “productive” discussions on continuing the positive momentum in the bilateral ties, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Tuesday.
The delegation, led by Director General of ruling LDP’s International Bureau Taro Kono, met the foreign secretary on Monday.
Taro Kono has previously served as Japan’s defence minister, foreign minister and digital minister, the MEA said.
“The delegation is visiting India under the India-Japan Distinguished Visitors Programme from September 18-22,” MEA spokesperson Randhir said during his bi-weekly media briefing here.
Other MPs who are part of this delegation are Kenji Nakanishi, Deputy Chairperson of the LDP Policy Research Council; Karen Makishima, Acting Director of the LDP International Bureau and Deputy Chair of the Committee for the Promotion of a Digital Society; and Sakon Yamamoto, the MEA said in a readout.
“Both sides held productive discussions on continuing the positive momentum in bilateral ties across a host of domains including defence, economic security, supply chain resilience, trade and investment, technology, innovation and people to people linkages,” it said.
The visiting delegation noted the impressive strides made by the Indian deep-tech entrepreneurship and research and innovation ecosystem. They made a positive mention of the scope and speed of India’s economic development including its manufacturing heft and the opportunities it is generating for India and its partner countries, the MEA added.
With an objective to further strengthen de-risking and supply chain resilience, they assessed the need for a more intensive economic security partnership between India and Japan.
“Given the rapid global economic and political churn, both sides underlined the importance of the India-Japan Special Strategic and Global Partnership built on the foundations of political trust, mutual goodwill and a common strategic outlook as an anchor for peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific,” the readout said.
They appreciated the need to move quickly to enhance the scope and depth of India-Japan engagement guided by the directions set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi during the 16th Annual Summit.
Jaiswal said the two sides discussed bilateral relations, “which obviously is doing very well”.
“With Japan, we have an expansive portfolio and all aspects of this relationship including, economic security partnership that both countries have forged, were discussed. On the defence side also we are doing well, we have joint exercises. All in all, it is such conversations and dialogue, which give further boost to the Special Strategic and Global Partnership the two countries enjoy among themselves,” he said.
On a separate query on the 10 trillion Yen (Rs 7 lakh crore) investment target in India over a decade, the MEA official said, “on that, there is progress”.
“Large number of Japanese companies have invested in India. More investments are happening. And we are very certain, we are very optimistic about more Japanese companies coming to invest in India in critical sectors,” he said.
He also cited Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal visiting Japan with a strong delegation some months back.
“And during that time, you would have seen the kind of response that our delegation got, which yet again speaks of the optimism. Not just optimism, there are things that are happening on ground.
“So all in all, we are very optimistic, we are very positive, and we are very certain that this relationship in the economic partnership specifically, between India and Japan is going to gain greater heights in the days ahead,” the MEA spokesperson added.
(PTI News)
