Japan a Key Partner in India’s Path to Self-Reliance: Foreign Secretary

Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said that Japan today is a partner in India’s journey toward a developed and self-reliant India.
 
 
Talking to the media on PM Modi’s two-day visit to Japan, Foreign Secretary Misri said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba spent nearly two and a half hours together, during which they held delegation-level talks, witnessed the exchange of agreements. In addition to bilateral issues, the two Prime Ministers also discussed the regional and global situation, and it was clear that in the midst of considerable geopolitical flux, the ties between India and Japan remain a pillar of stability in the International system.
 
 
Foreign Secretary informed that both leaders today exchanged the joint vision for the next decade. This is a 10-year strategic roadmap in economic and functional cooperation between the two sides. Apart from that to give new vigour to the relationship, both governments have decided to advance cooperation across eight pillars. These are economic relations, economic security, mobility, technology and innovation, ecological sustainability, health, people-to-people exchanges, and partnerships between Indian states and Japanese prefectures.
 
 
The Foreign Secretary said that both the Prime Ministers launched the Japan-India Artificial Intelligence Initiative, which will strengthen collaboration on AI, particularly on areas like large language models, data centres, and AI governance. He informed that Prime Minister also invited PM Ishiba for the AI Impact Summit, which India is hosting in February 2026.
 
 
Foreign Secretary Misri said that the two sides concluded an important action plan on human resource exchange today, which sets a two-way exchange of people of 5,00,000 over the next five years, including 50,000 skilled and semi-skilled personnel from India to Japan. Both sides also launched an Economic Security Initiative, which identifies five priority sectors which will receive concentrated attention from the two sides.
 
 
These sectors are semiconductors, critical minerals, pharmaceuticals, information and communication technology, especially telecommunications, and clean energy. He added that the leaders also launched joint declaration on security cooperation and India, Japan, digital partnership 2.0.