Japan, India sign pact to further free up trade+

TOKYO, Feb. 16 Kyodo -
Japan and India signed a bilateral free trade agreement Wednesday, raising
hopes that the deal will help Tokyo shore up its flagging economy by boosting
trade with the fast-growing emerging nation.
The agreement will eliminate tariffs on 94 percent of two-way trade flows in 10
years after its entry into force, which could kick-start their trade flows that
currently account for less than 1 percent of Japan's total trade in value
terms.
As Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan has declared that the country needs to
''open up'' to the world, expectations are growing among Japanese business
leaders that the new agreement will boost mutual investment and economic
cooperation between the private sectors.
Tokyo will submit the pact, endorsed by Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara
and visiting Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma, to parliament
for ratification to put it into force at an early date, Japanese officials
said.
Maehara expressed hope that the newly signed agreement, the 12th free trade
pact for Japan, will ''promote a strategic partnership between the two
countries so that they can establish win-win relations and achieve growth.''
Sharma said the agreement ''provides an overarching framework to promote our
economic cooperation, both trade and investment, which will be rewarding for
both India and Japan.''
The trade minister also told Maehara that he hopes trade between Japan and
India will double over the next three or four years and sought technical
cooperation from Japan, the Japanese officials said.
Business leaders in Japan have welcomed the move as the outlook for the
nation's economy remains uncertain in the medium and long terms due in part to
its declining population.
The FTA is ''very significant'' as the pact will help the two nations to grow
further while contributing to growth in Asia, Japan Business Federation
Chairman Hiromasa Yonekura said in a statement.
Shoei Utsuda, chairman of the Japan Foreign Trade Council, told a news
conference that the FTA with a country that has high economic potential is
''good'' as the nations ''could strengthen their partnership in infrastructure
cooperation and services such as information technology.''
India will be the largest economy among Tokyo's FTA partners. Japan has been
eager to increase its FTA partners as it lags behind South Korea in the
intensifying global race to sign free trade pacts, while an FTA between South
Korea and India came into effect in January 2010.
Through the agreement that Japan and India had negotiated since 2007, in value
terms, tariffs on 90 percent of Japanese exports to India, such as auto parts
and machinery items, and 97 percent of imports from India including farm and
fisheries products will be abolished over 10 years.
Sensitive Japanese farm products such as rice, wheat and dairy products are
excluded from tariff elimination.
Under the pact, the two countries will continue talks over the issue of whether
to allow Indian nationals to work in Japan as nurses and caregivers, with the
aim of reaching a conclusion within two years after the deal takes effect.
Japanese government officials have so far maintained a cautious stance on the
matter, saying Tokyo needs to assess the situation of Indonesian and Filipino
nurses and caregivers who are now in Japan under free trade arrangements before
examining the possibility of accepting Indian workers.
In fact, more than 1,000 applicants have come to Japan from the two nations,
but their exam pass rate remains very low, as kanji characters and technical
terms used in the exam are believed to pose a high hurdle for foreign
examinees.
Sharma expressed hope later in the day that the Japanese government will let
Indian nurses and caregivers work in Japan, emphasizing that India's health
care activities have already been accepted in other countries.
''I hope that Indian nurses and caregivers will be appreciated and would work''
in Japan, he said in his speech at the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo,
suggesting that the fast-growing emerging economy is aiming to expand its
health care business overseas.
As for trade in services, India will relax its restrictions on Japanese
investments in the retail and telecommunications sectors, with New Delhi
granting the first such preferential treatment to Tokyo among its FTA partners.
Japan, meanwhile, will speed up approval procedures for the sale of Indian-made
generic drugs by treating Indian pharmaceutical applications the same as those
from Japanese firms.
==Kyodo