PM Lee Hsien Loong at the Joint Media Doorstop with Japan PM Abe Shinzo (Dec 2013)

I am very happy to return to Tokyo and meet with Prime Minister Abe again for the third time bilaterally, and more than that, if you count multilateral meetings. We had a very good discussion — we reaffirmed our excellent bilateral relationship and welcomed new areas of cooperation, e.g. expanding biomedical research, or financial services and several other areas.

We agreed to do more together. We would like to promote bilateral trade further through the third review of the Japan-Singapore New-Age Economic Partnership Agreement (JSEPA). I also encouraged PM Abe to take further steps to liberalise our air services, to promote economic and people-to-people exchanges.

Singapore and Japan have a shared interest in the peace and stability of the region. There are some issues which are warm, or heating up, and we hope that these will be well managed and will not affect the overall stability of the region and our wider interests in cooperation and integration.

I am therefore very happy that Mr Abe has accepted my invitation to come and address the Shangri-La Dialogue next year and to give the keynote address, because that is an opportunity to expound Japan’s strategic view to a very significant audience of security, foreign policy, people from all over the region and the major powers, and also an opportunity to make informal contact with many of the ministers and leaders of the industry.

I think Singapore is very happy that ASEAN-Japan ties have made significant progress. We have enjoyed 40 years of friendship and cooperation. Tomorrow, we are going to have a commemorative summit and we look forward to the documents which are settled and are going to be adopted at this summit, being the basis for ASEAN-Japan ties to take the next step.

Thank you.

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