India, Japan sign 12 statements, agreements to enhance ties

Tokyo, Dec 15 (UNI) India and Japan today signed as many as 12 statements and agreements designed in the main to enhance the economic content of their relationship, which the two sides today decided to upgrade to a Strategic and Global Partnership at summit-level talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe.

Apart from the Joint Statement issued by the two Prime Ministers, the two countries signed a Joint Ministerial Statement on the launching of a Joint Task Force to develop an Economic Partnership Agreement/Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA/EPA) between them.

It said that the EPA/CEPA should cover, but may not be limited to trade in goods, trade in services, measures for trade promotion, facilitation and liberalisation of investment flows, measures for promoting economic cooperation in identified sectors and other areas for a comprehensive economic partnership between the two countries.

The task force will try to complete the negotiations as soon as possible, in approximately two years.

The two sides also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor to be developed alongwith the dedicated freight corridor coming up on the route.

According to it, the industrial corridor will have several supporting infrastructure projects such as power facilities, rail connectivity to ports en-route and would also cover development of ports on the west coast of India.

Along this corridor, several industrial estates, Special Economic Zones and clusters with high quality infrastructure are proposed to be developed to attract more investments, including from Japan.

The government of India and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation signed an agreement providing for undertaking investment promotion activities in India in a sustained and coordinated manner.

There was also an MoU to upgrade the Japan-India Policy Dialogue (JIPD) to the level of ministers from the existing official level.

The two countries also signed a joint statement on the promotion of India-Japan tourism exchanges.

Among other things, it includes designation of 2007 as India-Japan Tourism Exchange Year; participation of Japan in SATTE 2007, a travel fair in India, and India's participation in events like JATA and World Travel Fair in Japan.

It also sets a target for increasing the number of visitors between the two countries to 300,000 by 2010, which will be almost the double of what it was in 2005 and further increase to 500,000 by 2015.

The Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) and the Japan Foundation signed a memorandum to enhance cooperation in the areas of art and culture, intellectual exchanges and exchange of information, among other things.

The two sides signed an MoU providing for Japanese assistance towards the development of the Indian Institute of Information Technology for Design and Manufacturing (IITDM) at Jabalpur.

An MoU between India's Department of Science and Technology and the Japan Science and Technology Agency provided for the commencement of a new programme for joint funding and support for cooperative research by the scientists of the two countries.

Another MoU between the Department of Science and Technology and Japan's RIKEN (Institute of Physical and Chemical Research provided for cooperation in detection tools for security, genome-related research, including system biology, computational science and other areas of mutual interest.

The two sides also reached an understanding on relaxation of civil aviation arrangements. Its provisions include the designated airlines of both sides granting access to one additional point of call each for operation of scheduled services; three more points in each country being allowed for code sharing operations; enhancing of capacity entitlement to 21 services per week; designated airlines of each country operating all cargo services up to seven frequencies a week; and setting up a mechanism on code sharing arrangements including the domestic code share.

MoUs were also signed for twinning relationships between Delhi and the Fukuoka prefecture in Japan and between Maharashtra and the Okayama prefecture.

They provide for cooperation in the areas of economy, tourism and culture, among other things.

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