Noda to prod ROK on FTAs
Daily Yomiuri, Japan
Noda to prod ROK on FTAs
By Hiromu Namiki / Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer
15 December 2011
Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda will likely urge South Korean President Lee Myung Bak to begin negotiations on a free trade agreement between the two countries plus China, when Lee visits Tokyo this weekend, top Democratic Party of Japan policymaker Seiji Maehara said Wednesday.
At a lecture of the Yomiuri International Economic Society in Tokyo, Maehara, who serves as the DPJ Policy Research Committee chairman, said he expects Noda will strongly encourage Lee to begin trilateral FTA negotiations between the three countries, as well as bilateral FTA negotiations between Japan and South Korea when Lee visits on Saturday and Sunday.
"China is the second-largest economy by gross domestic product, and Japan’s largest export partner. Mutual dependence between the two nations is growing," Maehara said. The GDP of Japan, China, and South Korea account for about 20 percent of global GDP.
China had been halfhearted about the trilateral free trade agreement, but changed its stance after the nine countries involved in negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade framework agreed on a broad outline of the principles of the framework last month.
Maehara also expressed his support for Japan joining negotiations on the TPP free trade pact, and played down criticisms the TPP, which is led by the United States, will lead to confrontations between China and TPP members. "Such claims lead us nowhere. The 21 member nations and regions of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum have agreed to achieve economic integration in the future. The question is how we achieve that goal, and the TPP is one way to reach it," Maehara said.
