Japan looks at early conclusion of EPA with India

New Delhi, Aug 21 (UNI) Ahead of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to India, Japan today said it will look at the early conclusion of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) and overcome all issues in a sincere manner.

''India and Japan will see great benefits in the EPA and we seek a swift conclusion to it,'' said Special Advisor to the Prime Minister of Japan Hiroshige Seko.

Economic Partnership Agreement, which has been in the works for about six months now and undergone three rounds of talks in Delhi and Tokyo will also include a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) for goods.

India and Japan, however, till now have not been able to identify common areas of cooperation under their proposed 'Free Trade Agreement Plus', which would come up for discussion during Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit today.

''From our experiences of conducting similar negotiations with other countries for economic cooperation, the issues can be overcome and we look to continue with our efforts and see a conclusion to the agreement,'' Mr Seko said.

The visit of the Japanese PM will also see a large contingent of business delegates arriving in India, a practice which Mr Seko says has been started by Mr Abe after he took over as the Prime Minister.

''Earlier business delegation were never a part of any PMs official visit because of fears of collusion between politics and business. However, this has changed now and we have the largest delegation of 200 business leaders coming to India, which exceeds the 130 who accompanied the PM in his visit to West Asia,'' Mr Seko said.

This delegation also underlines the high expectation associated with India, he added.

He said during Mr Abe's three-day visit, the 90 billion dollar Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) will alaos come up for discussion.

The DMIC is a flagship project of the Special Economic Partnership Initiative between India and Japan as envisioned in the joint statement issued by the two countries during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Japan in December 2006.

''There has been no specific company to come forward for the deal but Japanese companies see it as a very important deal. We expect the delegation to have a good exchange of views with the Indian counterparts and hope to take one step forward,'' Mr Seko said.

UNI