Japan’s $12 billion ‘Make in India’ fund to push investments

The Indian premier spoke warmly of his friendship with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as well as pointing to the power of their political alliance, after signing deals including the $15 billion Shinkansen train.

For his part, the visiting Japanese PM said: “A strong India is good for Japan and a strong Japan is good for India”. And they agreed a memorandum of understanding on the peaceful use of nuclear energy, which will be signed once technical details have been finalised. The announcement means Japan has beaten China – which had also been eyeing Modi’s bullet train dream as an economic opportunity – to the first high-speed rail project in India. New Delhi was reluctant and pointed out to Tokyo that it had declared a unilateral moratorium on nuclear tests in 2008 and it still remained in force.

Mr. Yasuhisha told The Hindu that defence ties with India are now “fundamentally important” to Japan and that India’s flagship “Make in India” programme also will benefit from defence co-production plans.

In the past decade, ties between India and Japan have improved dramatically and Mr Modi has made strengthening ties with Japan a special priority since taking office a year ago.

Both countries are in territorial disputes with China, and their new accords may be seen by some as a reaction against China’s growing influence in the region.

The high point of the new strategic and military realignment is Japan’s formal entry into the India-U.S. Malabar bilateral maritime exercises, turning it into a trilateral initiative aimed at ensuring peace, security and freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region. “Prime Minister Modi’s economic policies are safe and reliable”.

The Japanese Prime Minister’s visit to India, as part of the agreement that the two Prime Ministers meet every year, has been exceptional in taking the template of relationship well forward.

A joint feasibility study for the project was conducted by the Indian Railways and Japan International Cooperation Agency in July this year. Experts and officials believe the decision will kick-start a new era of railway modernisation in India.

The train will reduce travelling time between the two cities to three hours from eight.