India to Japan: "Time has come for strategic congruence"

New Delhi

14 May 2007

India on Monday told Japan that the "time has come for strategic

congruence" between them as both countries enjoyed a lot of common, shared, political

and economic, values, the spokesman of Ministry of External Affairs said.

Briefing reporters after the delegation-level talks between Foreign Secretary Shivshankar

Menon and Japanese Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Shotaro Yachi, the spokesman

said that Mr Menon's remarks about strategic congruence were "in general terms".

Both sides also "spent considerable amount of time" on regional issues and discussed

the East Asia architecture "in some detail". (The next East Summit Summit will be held in

Singapore in November.)

Mr Menon briefed his Japanese counterpart about the situation in South Asia and Mr

Yachi, in turn, gave a detailed briefing on North Korea. Iran, India's relation with China

and the Group of Four's efforts for the United Nations Security Council reform were

discussed. "[We] agreed to continue to work closely together in New Delhi and New

York," the spokesman said. World Trade Organisation and the Doha round and climate

change were also taken up. "The foreign secretary at their (Japan) request briefed on the

negotiations with the United States (on civilian nuclear cooperation agreement). Japan is

fully aware of our concerns ... of India's need for energy," he said. (Japan is a member of

the Nuclear Suppliers Group.)

The spokesman said that Mr Menon and Mr Yachi discussed the bilateral

Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement that is being negotiated. The next

round of talks on this issue will be held in New Delhi on June 25. "There is a broad

agreement on the modalities (of CEPA) and the pace will pick up (in subsequent

meeting)," he said.

The first bilateral meeting on high technology trade will take place in June. The India-

Japan High Level Energy Dialogue will meet in July when five working groups will hold

substantive discussions. Also in July, both sides will launch their strategic economic

dialogue to sharpen focus on special economic collaboration projects.

The spokesman said that the Japanese side has proposed to start a Japan-India

strategic dialogue group on broad policy issues. India has accepted the proposal in

principle and suggested that the group meet first at the official level. "... [and then let us]

see where it goes," the spokesman said. Japan also said that a mentors group

comprising international academics be set up for making the Nalanda University an

institution of excellence.

India and Japan have also decided to promote people-to-people contacts like more

student exchanges and easing of visa for business people and tourists and undertake

science and technology cooperation in bioinformatics, biotechnology and

nanotechnology.

The two projects that are actively being processed -- dedicated railway freight corridor

and the Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor -- were reviewed. The spokesman said that

there was considerable progress by the Indian side on the dedicated freight corridor

project and India hoped to be able to make a proposal to the Japanese side. On the

industrial corridor, he said that both sides were working towards finalising a concept

paper.