The Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) has helped strengthen the economic ties between India and Japan, Tamaki Tsukada, Minister (Economy) at the Embassy of Japan, said here on Wednesday.

He said the agreement was not biased in favour of Japan, as reported in the media, and argued that the benefits of fund flow from Japanese companies into India and the positive impact of jobs created here had offset India’s negative trade deficit.

He was addressing a seminar on ‘Emerging Business Opportunities under Indo-Japan Economic Partnership’ organised by the Federation of Indian Export Organisations and Japan External Trade Organisation.

Export platform

Tsukada said Japanese companies such as Panasonic, Yamaha and Hitachi were increasingly looking at India as an export platform, and were increasing their presence in the market.

However, he said more work needed to be done by the two Governments to reduce the bottlenecks in the areas of taxation, intellectual property rights and standardisation of quality control.

Economic ties

Arjun Asrani, former Indian Ambassador to Japan, said the media should highlight the growing economic relationship between the two countries instead of showcasing only the relations between Japan and India.

He said that the future of India-Japan economic ties might include greater exchange of military hardware and technology.

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