ISDS Case Map
Japan
The United States and Japan on Friday agreed on language aimed at giving Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe political cover to bring the world’s third-largest economy into negotiations on a US-led free trade agreement in the Asia Pacific region.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is making final preparations to announce Japan’s entry into the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade negotiations after holding talks later Friday with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington, government sources said.
About 120 members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party joined major lobby groups for a rally Thursday to oppose participation in the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade talks, stepping up pressure on the Abe administration to maintain barriers on sensitive items in the farming, fishing and medical markets.
Steel products should be excluded from the ambit of FTA with Japan and Korea as these countries are flooding the Indian market, taking advantage of concessional duty rates at the cost of domestic firms, industry body Assocham said today.
The prime minister and his Japanese counterpart have pledged to work together to reach a comprehensive free trade agreement between the two countries.
India’s free trade agreement (FTA) with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations ( Asean), which kicked off for trade in goods from 2010, is an important building block of its Look East policy, and its efforts to integrate with a wider pan-Asian economic community encompassing China, Japan and Korea.
Over 200 business leaders from China, Japan and South Korea gathered in Seoul to further promote and commemorate the launch of the trilateral free trade negotiations.
Thailand will propose a boost in bilateral trade with Japan to US$100 billion by 2017 through closer cooperation via both government and the private sector.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government has started to move on its economic policies.
Abe likens bold monetary easing, flexible fiscal policies and growth strategy aimed at promoting private-sector investment to “three arrows.”
This will be a big year for Japan in trade talks. Expanding trade is important for the Japanese economy because Japan lacks natural resources. In conducting trade talks, Japan must (1) try to find agreements beneficial to all negotiating partners while (2) protecting national interests, especially by preventing trade agreements from tearing up communities and from undermining the social policy fabric that Japan has painstakingly established over many decades.
