Bullet train , Nuclear , Defence deals fast-track India-Japan ties.
New Delhi : Prime Minister Narendra was all smiles on Saturday. Things couldn’t have gone more better for him than today. His Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe just kept dishing out deal after deal for him. First Japan committed billions of dollars of investments in India, including a $12-billion loan at negligible interest for the much touted “Bullet Train” and another $12 billion for the “Make in India” initiative, besides inking far-reaching pacts on defence and nuclear energy as part of what has been termed as the “Power of 16” agreements. The 16 agreements came during Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to India, during which he also attended the annual bilateral summit on the “special strategic and global partnership” with his host and Indian counterpart Narendra Modi.
“Today, we have scaled new summits in our shared journey,” a visibly pleased Modi told the media after his delegation-level talks with the visiting Japanese side, led by Abe. “The partnership between India and Japan has infinite potential. I’m convinced of that,” Abe, on his part, added. The Indian side was particularly elated with the package for the high-speed train between Mumbai and Ahmedabad, as it comes with an interest of a mere 0.1 percent, a duration of as many as 50 years and a moratorium on repayments up to 15 years. Modi also thanked Abe for the “Japan-India Make-in-India Special Finance Facility” of up to 1.5 trillion yen ($12 billion approximately) to promote investments from the Asian giant, mainly in infrastructure that need long gestation funding. With India assuring Japan that it will become a full member in the four international nuclear export control regimes, Tokyo also moved forward and decided to ink a pact with New Delhi to cooperate on peaceful uses of nuclear energy after finalising the technical details. “This is a shining symbol of a new level of mutual confidence and strategic partnership in the cause of a peaceful and secure world,” Modi said, adding the pact envisaged on nuclear energy cooperation would extend beyond commerce and clean energy.
Modi also said that India will extend to the Japanese people the visa on arrival facility from March 1 next year, and forge better ties in the defence sector, including the potential purchase of equipment such as the US-2 amphibian aircraft for the Indian armed forces. Similarly, Abe said in the next five years Japan would like 10,000 young Indian talents to visit his country under such frameworks as student exchange, IT training and short term programmes, and hoped that this will provide solid bonds for future relations. The two sides also took their ties forward on maritime issues, in both the bilateral and regional context. On the one side, both leaders welcomed Japan’s regular participation in the India-US Malabar Exercises, while also expressing concerns over challenges in the Indo-Pacific region.
Starting the day with a meeting with business leaders, the warmth between the two “friends” was visible when Modi and Abe used the Bullet Train (Shinkansen in Japan) as an analogy to praise each other. “Prime Minister Modi’s economic policies are like Shinkansen — high speed, safe and reliable and carrying many people along,” said Abe. Modi’s counter point: “India and Japan should move ahead together, not just in the sphere of high-speed trains, but also for ‘high-speed growth’.” Modi said India and Japan will shape an Asian century as they realise Vision 2025 of their ties. “No friend will matter more in realising India’s economic dreams than Japan,” said the Indian prime minister. “I cannot think of a strategic partnership that can exercise a more profound influence on shaping the course of Asia and our interlinked ocean regions more than ours.”
JAPANESE BONANZA
* A Rs 98,000-crore project to lay India’s first bullet train network between commercial nerve centre of Mumbai and Ahmedabad
* Memorandum concerns agreement on cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy: Both sides confirmed they have reached agreement on such cooperation.
* Agreement concerns transfer of defence equipment and technology which provides a framework to enhance defence and security cooperation by making available to each other defence equipment and technology necessary to implement joint research, development and/or production projects.
