Japanese envoy lauds ties with Pakistan

The Japan-Pakistan ties in all fields which were initiated in 1952 have been increasing steadily and embrace all sectors of economic and cultural cooperation.

This was disclosed by the Japanese ambassador to Pakistan, Kunimori Matsuda, while speaking to mediafolk at the meet-the-press programme of the Karachi Press Club on Monday evening.

He said that after the induction of the present Pakistani government, dialogue with Pakistani on multifarious issues had increased. Pakistan, he said, faced a very bright future in the field of agriculture and fisheries and pointed out that over 25 per cent of Pakistan’s GDP came from agriculture, He said that Japan would like to cooperate with Pakistan in this sector.

Pakistan’s agriculture had great promise to become a farm products exporting country, he said, adding that Pakistan, with its population of 220 million with over 60 per cent being under 30, was the sixth largest country in the world and held out lots of promise for trade and investment.

Besides, the Japanese ambassador said, we would like to cooperate more with Pakistan in the field of building schools and training institutes to help Pakistan overcome the problems in the education sector.

Some of the projects he mentioned were: the Indus Highway project, about which said that Japan had assisted in the construction of 79 per cent of the Indus Highway; Ghazi Barotha Hydropower 1,450 MW project, situated upstream of Indus, was financed by Japan alongside the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, the total cost of the project being around 320 million US dollars; and as regards polio eradication Japan had extended grants to Pakistan for the 100 million project through Unicef for the procurement of vaccines and other allied items.

He said that cricket was very popular even in Japan and said that in the near future, an under-19 Japanese cricket would be touring Pakistan. To a question about the Karachi Circular Railway as regards the contract for its renewal, which was awarded to Japan but later the deal was cancelled and the Chinese were approached for this but China had expressed inability, he said the Japanese government had been approached by Pakistan but no decision had thus far been taken on the matter.