Japan PM Fumio Kishida on two-day India visit from Saturday

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will commence his two-day visit to India starting Saturday for the 14th India-Japan Annual Summit where he is scheduled to hold talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

This visit on March 19-20 will be Kishida's first such visit in his role as Prime Minister and the Summit would be the first meeting between the two leaders. The previous India-Japan Annual Summit took place in Tokyo in October 2018.

India and Japan have multi-faceted cooperation within the ambit of their "Special Strategic and Global Partnership".

The Summit will provide an opportunity for both sides to review and strengthen the bilateral cooperation in diverse areas as well as exchange views on regional and global issues of mutual interest so as to advance their Partnership for peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond.

Earlier PM Modi had spoken to PM Kishida on phone in October 2021 soon after the Japanese prime minister had assumed office.

Both sides expressed a desire to further strengthen our Special Strategic and Global Partnership.

Since PM Modi's visit to Japan in 2014, tremendous progress has been made on the implementation of several important decisions which have been taken by both the Prime Ministers. Shinzo Abe was then the Japanese PM.

A target was achieved of Japanese Yen 3.5 trillion public and private investments in India which were announced by PM Modi and PM Shinzo Abe in 2014.

At present, there are 1455 Japanese companies in India. Eleven Japan Industrial Townships (JIT) have been established, Neemrana in Rajasthan and Sri City in Andhra Pradesh with the most number of companies. The 5th largest source of FDI; largest supplier of ODA (development partner of India).

However, several infrastructure projects are underway through Japanese assistance including Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail, Dedicated Freight Corridor, metro projects, Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor Project.

India and Japan had signed a Digital Partnership in October 2018. At present, Indian startups have raised more than USD 10 billion from Japanese Venture Capitals. India and Japan have also launched a private sector driven fund-of-funds to invest in technology startups in India which has raised USD 100 million so far.

Both sides also have Cooperation in the field of ICT, in areas such as 5G, under-sea cables, telecom and network security. A workshop on 5G was also held.

Progress has also been made in skill development. The total number of Japan-India Institutes of Manufacturing (JIM) now is 19 (it was 8 in 2018). These institutes are established by Japanese companies based in India for training skilled workers.

Japanese companies have also set up 7 Japanese Endowed Courses (JEC) at various colleges. 220 Indian youth placed in Japan as interns under Technical Intern Training Programme (TITP).

Last year India had also signed a Specified Skilled Workers Agreement. The Japanese side has since January this year started examination for nursing care under this programme.

The Agreement on Reciprocal Provision of Supplies and Services between the Self-Defence Forces of Japan and the Indian Armed Forces (or ACSA), which was signed on 9 September 2020, came into force on July 11 2021.

Both the countries signed a convergence on free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific. They signed a Reciprocal Provision of Supplies and Services Agreement (RPSS). Meanwhile, the inaugural 2+2 ministerial meeting was held in November 2019.

In terms of the Act East Forum, a decision was taken in the 2017 Summit to establish the India-Japan Act East Forum. The objective is to coordinate our developmental projects in North-East India in areas of connectivity, forest management, disaster risk reduction and capacity building.

Several projects including the up-gradation of highways in Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram are underway.