Japan keen on stepping up ties with India

New Delhi, Dec 28 (PTI) Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has said his country is keen to step up cooperation with India in different areas including security issues. "I am determined to further step up the cooperation between the countries in areas like security and economics," Noda said here at a function Tuesday organised by the industry chamber FICCI and India Centre Foundation. Noda is in India on a three-day visit for the annual India-Japan Summit meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Wednesday. "We will have discussions (with Singh) and exchange of views with him on various projects including the DMIC (Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor) project," he said. Japan has shown interest to have financial partnership in the ambitious USD 90 billion DMIC project, aimed at creating world-class industrial infrastructure along the Delhi-Mumbai Rail Freight Corridor which is under implementation. Terming the bilateral relationship between the two countries as "complementary", Noda said that while Japan has technology and capital, India has a young workforce as well as abundant demand for infrastructure. "On the economic front, there still remains plenty of potential for beneficial mutual coopeartion. Already over 800 Japanese companies have invested in India," he said. The India-Japan bilateral trade has shown a robust increase of 24 per cent at USD 13.2 billion during January-September 2011 on the back of a mutual free trade agreement. Under the FTA, officially known as Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), the two countries have slashed duties on large number of items of trade. Significantly, Japan has given access to the Indian pharmaceutical products. PTI Caption for pic: Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda (sporting a traditional cap of the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh) being welcomed by India's Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi (right) as Haryana state Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda looks on at the FICCI-India Centre Foundation organised India-Japan Global Partnership Summit in New Delhi on Tuesday. PTI Photo