India-Japan: PM Modi to Host Japanese PM Abe in Tamil Nadu for Annual Summit

The Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who is expected to visit India accompanied by a high-level delegation mid-December is likely to be hosted in the Southern state of Tamil Nadu and the focus of talks will be to strengthen economic and defence relations between India and Japan.

According to top diplomatic sources, “The location of Tamil Nadu has been shortlisted though not yet confirmed. Besides Gujarat, Northeast, another state getting a lot of investments from the Japanese government and companies in Tamil Nadu.” The Japanese leader during his earlier visits has already been to Varanasi in 2015 and Gujarat in 2017.

Though officially the date for the India-Japan annual summit which is the driving force of the relations has not been announced, most likely it will be on December 15. Under the framework of the Special Strategic and Global Partnership, at the sixth summit Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Prime Minister Shinzo are expected to explore new avenues for further deepening of relations.

Joint and trilateral military exercises, Space Cooperation, Indo-Pacific Region, Infrastructure projects, further strengthening of trade and economic ties will be on the agenda of talks. “Working in trilateral projects in Africa is going to be another issue to be on the list of issues for focussing during talks. India, Japan and Africa have already started working on projects in some countries in that continent,” said a top diplomat.

Talks would also include subjects like Artificial Intelligence, Facial Recognition, Connectivity, Aviation, Tourism, and promoting Japan as a preferred destination in Bollywood.

Recently, Japan has fast emerged as a key source of new investments in Tamil Nadu, where One Hub Chennai, which has been jointly developed by Ascendas-Ireo beyond Tiruporur, is already a hub for Japanese companies. Another a new industrial park, Origins which is being promoted by Sumitomo-Mahindra is expected to become the second cluster for Japanese investments.

Yanmar, a leading global manufacturer of diesel engines of Japan is in the process of setting up an engine plant for Rs500 crore at Origin and Nissei Electric is planning to invest around Rs 80 crore for electrical parts manufacturing.

With Tamil Nadu Business Facilitation Act and single window clearance in place, the state has become very proactive in attracting investments and in its effort to attract more investments from Japan has given 50 per cent exemption on stamp duty for the Sumitomo-Mahindra project.

There is also a Defence Corridor coming up in the state.

Aviation

Aviation is a new sector where Japan has been consciously making efforts to strengthen bilateral aviation cooperation. Various airlines of that country have introduced new routes to encourage more travel between the two countries as part of people-to-people contacts. ANA of Japan as part of its global strategy has plans to introduce a flight connecting Tokyo Narita International Airport and Chennai International Airport.

Targeting flyers from the IT city of Bangalore, Japan Airlines is planning to introduce a non-stop service between Tokyo-Narita and Bangalore India by 2020.

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Source: FE

Image Courtesy: DNA India

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