Tokyo: Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a bilateral meeting today with Japan Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and the two leaders agreed to further enhance bilateral security and defence cooperation, including in the area of defence manufacturing.

They concurred that the next 2+2 Foreign and Defence Ministerial Meeting may be held in Japan at the earliest.

PM Modi sought greater investment by Japanese companies in India.

The two leaders had a productive exchange of views on enhancing bilateral relations in various spheres as well as on some regional and global issues. The Japanese Prime Minister also hosted a dinner for PM Modi.

Prime Minister Modi raised the issue of further easing of travel restrictions in order to facilitate quarantine free entry into Japan for travellers from India carrying Covaxin and Covishield vaccination certificates.

The two leaders exchanged views on recent global and regional developments. They noted the convergences in their respective approaches to the Indo-Pacific and reaffirmed their commitment to a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific region. In this context, they welcomed the progress in the Quad's contemporary and constructive agenda such as vaccines, scholarships, critical technologies and infrastructure.

The Prime Minister and his Japanese counterpart appreciated the growing bilateral economic ties and agreed that both sides should work jointly towards implementing their decision to have 5 trillion yen in public and private investment and financing from Japan to India in the next five years.

Prime Minister highlighted the steps taken by the Government of India to improve ease of doing business, logistics through Gati Shakti initiative and urged Prime Minister Kishida to support greater investments by Japanese companies in India.

"Such investments would help in creating resilient supply chains and would be mutually beneficial. In this context, Prime Minister Modi appreciated that Japanese companies were increasing their investments in India and that 24 Japanese companies had successfully applied under the various PLI schemes," an official release said.

The two leaders noted the progress in the implementation of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Rail (MAHSR) project and welcomed the signing of the exchange of notes of the 3rd tranche loan for this project.

They highlighted the increasing importance of information and communication technologies and, in this regard, agreed to encourage greater collaboration between the private sectors of the two sides in the development of next-generation communication technologies.

They also discussed possibilities of collaboration in critical and emerging technologies such as 5G, Beyond 5G and semiconductors. The two Prime Ministers also agreed to deepen cooperation in the area of clean energy including green hydrogen and, in this regard, encouraged more business to business collaboration.

The two leaders agreed to further boost people-to-people linkages.

Prime Minister Kishida noted that such linkages should become the backbone of bilateral relations. In this regard, they took note of the progress in implementation of the Specified Skilled Workers (SSW) programme and agreed to further scale up this programme.

The two leaders concurred that the India-Japan Act East Forum was useful in prioritising the development of India's North East Region, and looked forward to the early implementation of various projects which were identified by the two sides during the Annual Summit.

PM Kishida extended an invitation to PM Modi to visit Japan for the next annual bilateral summit, which was accepted with pleasure.