Highlights of documents signed between India and Japan
Highlights of documents signed between India and Japan
Tokyo, Dec 15 2006. (PTI): The following are the highlights of the documents signed between India and Japan during current visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today:
1. Joint Statement: Towards India Japan Strategic and Global Partnership - (Signatories: Prime Minister of India and Prime Minister of Japan)
2. Joint Ministerial Statement on the launching of a joint task Force (JTF) to develop an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA)/ Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) between India and Japan - The Joint Ministerial Statement stipulates that the two sides will launch negotiations for the conclusion of an EPA/CEPA through a Joint Task Force (JTF). The India-Japan 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 India and Japan. It will be the endeavour of the JTF to complete the negotiations as soon as possible, in approximately two years (Signatories Minister of Commerce and Industry of India and Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries and Minister for Finance from Japan).
3. Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor: According to the MoU, the industrial corridor, to be developed along the Delhi-Mumbai Dedicated Freight 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 the corridor, several industrial estates, Special Economic Zone and clusters with high quality infrastructure are proposed to be developed to attract more investments including from Japan. A task Force under Vice-Minister METI and Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion will develop this concept and the components of the projects (Signatories: Minister of Commerce and Industry of India and Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan).
4. Cooperation Agreement between the Government of India and Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC)- The Agreement provides for undertaking investment promotion activities in India in a sustained and coordinated manner by strengthening collaboration between DEA and JBIC. The JIPD will be co-chaired by Minister of Trade and Industry from India and Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry from Japan (Signatories: Ambassador of India in Japan and Chairman, JBIC)
5. MoU to upgrade Japan-India Policy Dialogue (JIPD): The MoU upgrades the existing JIPD to the level of Ministers from the existing official level (Signatories; Minister of Commerce and Industry of India and Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan).
6. Joint Statement on the promotion of India-Japan tourism exchanges - The Joint Statement includes various activities as part of promoting exchange between the people of two countries and strengthening cooperation in the field of tourism. It, inter alis, includes designation of year 2007 as India-Japan Tourism Exchange Year participation of Japan in the SATTE 2007, a travel fair in India and India’s participation in events like JATA World Travel Fair in Japan. The Joint statement also sets 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, which will be three times than in 2005 (Signatories: Ambassador of India in Japan and Deputy vice Minister for tourism policy, Ministry of land, Infrastructure and Transport and Director-General, Southeast and Southwest Asia Division, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan).
7. Memorandum between Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) and the Japan Foundation - The Memorandum will facilitate mutually beneficial cooperation between the ICCR and the Japan Foundation in the areas of art and culture, intellectual exchange, exchange of information, among other things. (Signatories: Director General, ICCR and President Japan Foundation)
8. MOU on the establishment of Indian Institute of Information Technology for Design and Manufacturing (IITDM) at Jabalpur - The MOU provides the framework for assistance by the Government of Japan towards the development of IITDM. (Signatories: Ambassador of India in Japan and Director-General, Southeast and Southwest Asia Division, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan).
9. MoU between Department of Science & Technology and the Japan Science & Technology Agency in scientific cooperation programme - The MoU provides for the commencement of a new programme for joint funding and support for cooperative research conducted by the scientists of the two countries. (Signatories: Ambassador of India in Japan and President, JST).
10. MOU between Department of Science & Technology and RIKEN (Institute of Physical and Chemical Research) on cooperation in Science & Technology - Under this MoU, the two sides have agreed to cooperate in detection tools for security genome-related research, including system biology computational science including development of bioinformatics tools and other areas of mutual interest. The MoU also provides for establishing a Joint Working Group for the successful implementation of the MoU (Signatories; Ambassador of India in Japan and President, RIKEN).
11. Understanding on relaxation of Civil Aviation arrangements: During bilateral air services consultations between India and Japan, liberalised civil aviation arrangements have been worked out after a gap of 13 Years. The 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 upto seven frequencies/week; and setting up a mechanism on code sharing arrangements including the domestic code share.
12. MoUs for twinning relationship between Delhi State and Fukuoka Prefecture and Maharashtra State and Okayama Prefecture; The two sides have reached understandings of twinning arrangements between Delhi-Fukuoka and Maharashtra-Okeyama. The MoUs provide for cooperation in the areas of economy, tourism, culture etc. The objective of the MoUs are to promote and expand mutually beneficial cooperation and economic development in both states and to establish collaborative projects and assignments of mutual interest and benefit in identified thrust areas.
