India, Japan agree to enhance bilateral security, defence co-op

“Had an excellent meeting with PM @kishida230. This meeting gave us the opportunity to review the full range of relations between India and Japan. Our cooperation is rapidly rising and this augurs well for the people of our nations,” Modi said on Twitter, after their meeting in Tokyo.

“PM @narendramodi had a productive meeting with PM @kishida230. The two leaders discussed several subjects which will further cement the bond between India and Japan,” the Prime Minister’s Office tweeted.

The two leaders had a productive exchange of views on enhancing bilateral relations in various spheres as well as on some regional and global issues, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said. The two leaders concurred that the next 2+2 Foreign and Defence Ministerial Meeting may be held in Japan at the earliest, it said, adding that they appreciated the growing economic ties between the two countries.

They agreed that both sides should work jointly towards implementing their decision to have 5 trillion yen (USD 39.3 billion) in public and private investment and financing from Japan to India in the next five years, the MEA said.

Modi highlighted the steps taken by India to improve ease of doing business, logistics through the ‘Gati Shakti’ initiative and urged Kishida to support greater investments by Japanese companies in India. “Such investments would help in creating resilient supply chains and would be mutually beneficial. In this context, Prime Minister Modi appreciated that Japanese companies were increasing their investments in India and that 24 Japanese companies had successfully applied under the various Production Linked Incentive schemes,” the MEA said.

The two leaders noted the progress in implementation of Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Rail project and welcomed the signing of exchange of notes of the 3rd tranche of loan for this project. They agreed to encourage greater collaboration between private sectors of both sides in development of next generation communication technologies.