Japan's Abe Meets with Indian Finance Minister

Tokyo, April 1 (Jiji Press)--Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met with visiting Indian Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram on Monday. The two nations' relations have extremely strong potential, Abe said, expressing hopes that Japan can strengthen its strategic global partnership with India. Chidambaram replied that India also hopes to develop its ties with Japan further. Japan and India will speed up preparations to realize a visit to Japan by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singhin in the first half of 2013, government officials said. Asking for additional Japanese cooperation on infrastructure development in India, Chidambaram sought many more Japanese companies' investment in the South Asian country. Abe said that financial deregulation and improvements in the tax system would be needed to attract Japanese investment further. END