Detail Report about Bilateral Meetings between India and Japan
The friendship between India and Japan has a long history rooted in spiritual affinity and strong cultural and civilization ties dating back to the visit of Indian monk Bodhisena in 752 AD. In contemporary times, prominent Indians associated with Japan were Swami Vivekananda, Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, entrepreneur JRD Tata, freedom fighter Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and Judge Radha Binod Pal.
Post Second World War, India did not attend the San Francisco Conference but decided to conclude a separate peace treaty with Japan in 1952 after its sovereignty was fully restored marking a defining moment in the bilateral relations and setting the tone for the future. The sole dissenting voice of Judge Radha Binod Pal at the War Crimes Tribunal struck a deep chord among the Japanese public that continues to reverberate to this day.
Diplomatic Relations between India-Japan
India and Japan established diplomatic relations on 28 April 1952.
In the first decade after diplomatic ties were established, several high-level exchanges took place, including Japanese Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi’s visit to India in 1957, Prime Minister Nehru’s return visit to Tokyo the same year and President Rajendra Prasad’s visit in 1958.
Japan started providing Yen loans to India in 1958.
The visit of their Highnesses, the then Japanese Crown Prince Akihito and Crown Princess Michiko in 1960 elevated the relations to a new level.A test of the reliability of Japan as a friend was witnessed in 1991, when Japan was among the few countries that bailed India out of the balance of payment crisis.
The visit to India of the Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori in 2000 led to a significant and qualitative shift in India-Japan relations with the establishment of the Global Partnership between the two sides.
The transformation of our ties with Japan were provided further fillip by the decision to have Annual Summits between the Prime Ministers commencing 2006 when both sides established Strategic and Global Partnership.
India’s rapidly growing economy and the new economic opportunities created have caught the attention of the Japanese corporate sector, which is a driving force behind closer bilateral relations.
PM Shri Narendra Modi visited Japan on 27-29 June 2019 to participate in G20 Summit held in Osaka. On the sidelines, he held a bilateral meeting with PM Abe and discussed broad range of topics of mutual interest, such as Japans assistance to India for the coalition on disaster resilience infrastructure, fugitive economic offenders and anti-corruption measures, and infrastructure works of Japanese companies in the North East.
PM Abe and PM Modi also met on the sidelines of G7 Summit in Biarritz August 2019, and Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok 5 September 2019. PM Modi and PM Abe also met on 4 November 2019 in Bangkok during their visit to Bangkok to attend ASEAN-related summit meetings.
During his visit to Japan for the G20 Foreign Ministers Meeting in Nagoya during November 22-23, 2019, EAM met the Foreign Affairs Minister of Japan. Earlier, Bilateral Strategic Dialogue led by Foreign Ministers was held on 29 June 2019 on the sidelines of G20 Summit in Osaka, and Defense Ministerial Meeting was held on 2-3 September 2019 in Tokyo. India-Japan Foreign Ministers meeting was also held on 26th September 2019 on the sidelines of 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly. Mr. Shigeru Kitamura, Secretary General of National Security Secretariat NSS of Japan visited India in November 2019 and called on PM Modi and held discussions with EAM and NSA.
Economic and Commercial relations
Japan is regarded as a key partner in India’s economic transformation. In the recent past, the India Japan relationship has transformed to a partnership of great substance and purpose. Japan’s interest in India is increasing due to a variety of reasons including India’s large and growing market and its resources, especially the human resources.
Bilateral Trade
Japans bilateral trade with India, totalled US 17. 63 billion in FY 2018-19. Exports from Japan to India during this period were US 12. 77 billion and imports were US 4. 86 billion. The bilateral trade between India and Japan for FY 2019-20 April December totaled to US 11. 87 billion. India’s exports from Japan amounted to US 3. 94 billion while Indias import from Japan amounted to US 7. 93 billion.
India’s primary exports to Japan have been petroleum products, chemicals, elements, compounds, non-metallic mineral ware, fish fish preparations, metalliferous ores scrap, clothing accessories, iron steel products, textile yarn, fabrics and machinery etc. India’s primary imports from Japan are machinery, electrical machinery, iron and steel products, plastic materials, non-ferrous metals, parts of motor vehicles, organic chemicals, manufactures of metals, etc. 14.
Investment and ODA Cumulatively, since 2000 till September 2019 the investments to India have been around US 32. 058 billion Japan ranks third now among the major investors. Japanese FDI into India has mainly been in automobile, electrical equipment, telecommunications, chemical, financial insurance and pharmaceutical sectors. During FY 2015-16 and FY 2016-17, Japanese FDI into India increased from US 2. 61 billion to US 4. 7 billion respectively.
India Japan Digital Partnership
India Japan Digital Partnership IJDP and Start-up Hub In view of synergies and complementarities between the two nations, India-Japan Digital Partnership I-JDP was launched during the visit of PM Modi to Japan in October 2018 furthering existing areas of cooperation as well as new initiatives within the scope of cooperation in STICT, focusing more on Digital ICT Technologies.
During Minister Sekos visit to India in May 2018, both sides signed Joint Statement on Japan-India Startup Initiative setting up the first Startup Hub in Bangalore by JETRO to identify selected Indian start-ups for Japanese market and for potential Japanese investors. Thereafter, Startup-India under Invest India and Japan Innovation Network JIN have signed a MoU on innovation collaboration with a focus on SDGs Sustainable Development Goals connecting two start-up eco-systems in June 2018. At the 5 th meeting of the JWG on ICT in India on 7 August 2018, both sides discussed cooperation in the field of cyber security, 5G telecommunication infrastructure, and human resource development in ICT sector in third countries.
Along with JWG, a Disaster Prevention ICT Workshop was also held. Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Mr. Piyush Goyal attended the G20 Ministerial Meeting on Trade and Digital Economy on 8-9 June 2019 in Tsukuba and participated in discussions relating to increasing trade and cooperation to harness the potential of digital economy. On the sidelines, he held a bilateral meeting with METI Minister Hiroshige Seko on India-Japan bilateral cooperation in trade and investment. India and Japan are jointly launching a fund-of-funds of 187 million Rs 1,298 crore to invest in technology startups in India. US150 million of the targeted corpus will be raised from Japanese investors and the remaining will be raised from Indian investors. Reliance Nippon Life Asset Management Ltd RNAM will manage the fund.
Four Japanese investors- Mizuho Bank, Development Bank of Japan, Nippon Life and Suzuki have already signed letters of intent. The fund aims to invest in more than 200 Indian companies focused on emerging areas such as Internet of Things IoT, Artificial Intelligence AI, Machine Learning ML, fin-tech, healthcare, consumer, education, robotics, automation and business-to-business B2B software.
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