Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (L) with PM Narendra Modi during his last visit. (File)
Besides laying the foundation stone for the Rs 1.1 lakh-crore Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project, India and Japan will sign 10 MoUs when Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit Gujarat along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi next week. Abe is the second head of state after Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit Gujarat for bilateral talks with India.
The two prime ministers will also launch a couple of projects, including the Rs 3,000-crore Suzuki car manufacturing plant at Hansalpur, about 170 km from Ahmedabad, using a remote.
“Abe is visiting Gujarat at a time when the current Japanese investments in the state is close to one billion US dollars. This is expected to reach USD three billion by 2020,” said a state government official.
After arriving in Ahmedabad on September 13 afternoon, Modi and Abe will first visit Sabarmati Ashram, before heading for a heritage hotel in the old city area. “The Japanese PM will be accorded a very warm welcome. We are expecting people to turn up on the route between Sabarmati Ashram and the hotel to welcome the two leaders. Later, both of them will hold talks at the hotel, before attending a dinner hosted by Modi at the same venue,” a senior government official told The Sunday Express.
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The Asia-Africa Growth Corridor (AAGC) that India is planning to develop along with Japan is also expected to feature in the talks. Earlier this year, a vision document regarding the AAGC was released by the two governments on the sidelines of an African Development Bank Meeting (AfDB) held at Gandhinagar.
The next day, both the leaders will visit Sabarmati railway station in Ahmedabad where they will lay the foundation stone of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Rail Corridor or the bullet train project.
An MoU has already been signed between Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and India’s Railway Ministry for the 508-km corridor, of which two-thirds is expected to fall within Gujarat.
Thereafter, Modi and Abe will head to Mahatma Mandir in Gandhinagar where they will participate in delegation-level talks.
“A parallel CEO conference will also be held at the same venue, where representatives from both India and Japan will participate,” the official said, adding that an entire hotel in western Ahmedabad has been booked to accommodate a Japanese delegation that will be arriving with Abe.
