India-Japan EPA likely within a year

Mar 9, 2007, 9:45 GMT

New Delhi, March 9 (IANS) Japan Friday said it hoped to clinch a special economic partnership agreement with India within a year that will take economic and strategic ties between the two countries to a new plane.

'The Japanese minister told me that a special economic relationship pact will be clinched within a year,' Minister of State for Industry Ashwani Kumar said at a seminar on Japan-India strategic partnership here.

He was referring to his talks with Senior Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Katsuhito Asano Friday morning.

'It will only be a matter of time that India and Japan will consolidate their relations in trade and business for the world to watch,' Kumar said as he conjured up a robust picture of growing India-Japan business ties.

'In addition to strengthening bilateral economic relations, Japan-India EPA should also serve as a model of high quality economic partnership towards open regionalism in Asia,' said Asano.

'Japan strongly hopes India will take bold steps towards this end,' Asano said as he spoke about the growing importance of South Asia for regional stability and integration. Japan, along with the US, the European Union, China and South Korea, have been invited for the first time as observers at the 14th SAARC summit to be held here April 3-4. Foreign Minister Taro Aso is likely to represent Japan at the SAARC summit.

Sadako Ogata, president, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in charge of administering official development assistance (ODA), said Tokyo will continue to support New Delhi in four priority sectors: infrastructure, environment, social development and human resource training.

India and Japan launched negotiations on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CECA) last month to accelerate their economic engagement which the two Asian powers see as the 'core element of their strategic partnership.'

The two leading economies of Asia decided to conclude negotiations on a CECA, what Japan chooses to call EPA, within two years during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Tokyo in December last year.

The key elements of the new economic partnership between India and Japan include the promotion of a Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor, supported by a freight corridor along the same route, cooperation in setting up a multi-product Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in India, a 'One Village, One Product' programme, and the development of small and medium enterprises through a Business Support Centre.

© 2007 Indo-Asian News Service