Thaindian News

New Delhi, Dec 26 (IANS) India and Japan Wednesday will discuss the prospects of reviving civil nuclear cooperation negotiations and may sign a currency swap pact that could help stem the rupee’s slide.

They will firm up strategic ties, with Tokyo planning to unveil a $4.5-billion grant for an ambitious infrastructure project and explore escalation in investment ranging from infrastructure to bullet trains.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda touches down here Tuesday evening on a three-day official visit for annual summit talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

This will be Noda’s first visit to India since he became prime minister in September.

The two leaders will Wednesday discuss bilateral, regional and global issues, Syed Akbaruddin, officer on special duty and spokesperson of the external affairs ministry, said here Monday ahead of the visit.

Civil nuclear cooperation, trade and investment, maritime security, counter-terrorism, anti-piracy cooperation, UN reforms and the evolving East Asia architecture will be among the key issues.

The two leaders will also review the India-Japan-US trilateral meeting held last week.

The two sides are likely to ink a multi-billion dollar bilateral currency swap pact that could help New Delhi stem the rupee’s fall.

The quantum of the currency swap deal is not clear yet, but reliable sources said that it would be over $10 billion. Japan’s foreign reserves has hit an all time high of $1.3 trillion.

Details of the arrangement are with the finance ministries and prime ministers of the two countries, Gautam Bambawale, joint secretary for East Asia in the external affairs ministry, told reporters.

The two leaders are expected to discuss ways of resuming nuclear negotiations that stalled after the Fukushima disaster.

“I think this will be a subject that will be discussed between the two prime ministers,” he said.

Bambawale added that although the talks paused after the March Fukushima disaster, the two sides have been focusing on issues concerning nuclear security.

There have been informal consultations since the Fukushima incident, he said.

India, on its part, is hoping that talks at the summit level will revive negotiations and push the process of concluding a nuclear deal with Japan, a leader in civil nuclear technology that depends on nuclear power for over 30 percent of its energy needs.

Early this year, Japan removed seven Indian entities from its Foreign End User List, which included Indian Rare Earths Ltd.

During his talks with External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna in Tokyo in October, Japan’s Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba conveyed Tokyo’s readiness to resume nuclear talks.

Boosting defence cooperation will be high on the agenda. Japan is likely to announce its participation the India-US naval exercises next year.

Enhancing trade and investment will be another important area of discussions. Ahead of the visit, India called for more Japanese investment across the spectrum.

“We are looking to see more Japanese FDI coming to India. We are hoping to see an increase in Japanese FDI across the board,” said Bambawale.

In the last two years, Japanese FDI into India has amounted to $3.62 billion, concentrated mostly in sectors such as automobiles, electronics, financial services and telecom. Bilateral trade has reached $13.2 billion.

Early this year, the two countries signed a comprehensive economic cooperation agreement, an important step that has the potential to scale up trade and investment between them.