ISDS Case Map
Japan
The prime ministers of Japan and Vietnam agreed Monday to launch talks on a free trade agreement between the two countries, Japanese officials said.
A free trade pact with Japan has given Philippine agricultural products like sugar wider access to the world's second-largest economy, an agriculture official said yesterday.
Japan is considering starting negotiations on signing a bilateral investment treaty with Cambodia and Laos to promote the entry of Japanese businesses in the developing economies' markets.
Japan will accept 400 nurses and 600 caregivers from the Philippines under the bilateral free-trade agreement signed over the weekend, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said Monday.
The newly signed Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement must be scrutinized by the Philippine Senate because of apprehensions over its alleged disadvantages to the country, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. said on Monday. Workers' and other groups also slammed the signing of the agreement, while a Department of Labor and Employment official said he doubted many Filipino health care workers would want to go to Japan.
Japan and the Philippines signed a free-trade pact after overcoming the thorny issue of Filipina nurses seeking work in the world's second-biggest economy.
The upcoming Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) will bring dubious gain to the local economy while severely limiting government's policy options to develop domestic industries.
It is contemptible how the Philippine government trades its citizens for export goods that will only push the country to even greater disaster. This is the aim of the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is set to sign with Japan Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi today during the Asia Europe Meeting in Helsinki, Finland.
For Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the future of the Filipino people has a very cheap price. So cheap that she has opted to sell it to Japan by further opening up the local economy in exchange for the annual deployment of 400-500 caregivers and nurses to Japan.
Japan expects to gain agreement from India by the end of this year to start talks on a bilateral economic partnership agreement, a senior Foreign Ministry official said Wednesday.
