'Excited' PM Modi arrives in Japan for 5-day visit

Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in the Japanese city of Osaka on Saturday on a visit which is expected to see new vistas being opened in bilateral ties with particular focus on cooperation in the fields of defence, civil nuclear and infrastructure besides commerce.

On his first bilateral visit outside the subcontinent as the prime minister, Modi arrived at the OsakaInternationalAirport to begin the first leg of his five-day visit to Japan.

In the first leg of his trip, he will see the ‘smart city’ experiment here considering that he intends to build 100 smart cities in India.

Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will have a substantive summit meeting in Tokyo on September 1 during which the two sides will look at ways to take the strategic and global partnership forward.

Modi has a substantive agenda during the trip which he hopes will “write a new chapter” in bilateral ties and take the strategic and global partnership to a higher level.

Underlining the importance of the visit, the “excited” Modi said on the eve of the trip that Japan has “paramount importance” in his vision for India’s development and progress.

India has “great expectations” from the visit, the external affairs ministry has said.

Cooperation in the fields of defence, civil nuclear, infrastructure development and rare earth materials is expected to top the agenda of the discussions. Some agreements, including in defence and civil nuclear sectors, are expected to be signed. Among the agreements to be signed is one on joint production of rare earth materials.

“I am keenly looking forward to my visit to Japan at the invitation of my good friend, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, for the annual summit between India and Japan,” Modi said in his pre-departure statement.

Noting that this will be his first bilateral visit outside the immediate neighbourhood as Prime Minister, he said it underlines “the high priority” that Japan receives in India’s foreign and economic policies.

“It is also a reflection of Japan’s paramount importance in my vision for development and prosperity in India and in peace, stability and prosperity in Asia at large,” Modi said.

“I am confident that my visit will write a new chapter in the annals of the relations between Asia’s two oldest democracies and take our strategic and global partnership to the next higher level,” he said. 

Image: Narendra Modi alights from the plane at Osaka International Airport. Photograph: PTI photo