Japan's foreign minister Hayashi set for two-day India visit
New Delhi: Japan’s foreign minister Yoshimasa Hayashi is scheduled to visit India for two days, starting Thursday. Hayashi is expected to meet his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar during this visit, which is a part of his six-nation tour across Asia and Africa.
The main focus of Hayashi's visit will be the ambitious Indo-Pacific investments plan set by prime minister Fumio Kishida during his own visit to India in March. This includes a $75 billion investment by Japan for infrastructure and security in the Indo-Pacific region by 2030.
Kishida also proposed the Bay of Bengal-North East Industrial Value Chain Concept, an initiative to attract manufacturing industries to India's northeastern provinces. Kishida, during his speech in New Delhi, declared Japan's intent to strategically use Official Development Assistance (ODA), expand it in various forms, and revise the Development Cooperation Charter to set new guidelines for ODA for the upcoming decade.
Japan plans to initiate an "offer-type" cooperation and a new framework for mobilizing private capital-type grant aid, while also proceeding with the amendment of the JBIC Law. Kishida emphasized that Japan, with India as an essential partner in developing Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP), would cooperate with other countries, including those from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
The upcoming discussions between Hayashi and Jaishankar are likely to include the ongoing economic crisis in Sri Lanka and the G20 Leaders level summit, scheduled for early September. The last time these two diplomats met was at the Quad Foreign Ministers Meeting in March 2023.
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