Japan, India expand joint currency swap line to $50 billion

Japan and India have decided to expand a bilateral currency swap facility to $50 billion from $15 billion, the two countries announced on Friday after bilateral talks on the sidelines of a Group of 20 summit.

The expanded facility would boost the financial backing for the rupee, one of the emerging markets currencies that has been hit hard by the prospective scaling back of ultra-easy US monetary policies.

Japanese universities woo Indian students

Promoting itself as an "affordable" destination for higher education as compared to the west, 20 Japanese universities participated in an education fair here Friday to attract Indian students aspiring to study abroad.

Organised under the "Global 30" project which aims to invite 300,000 foreign students to Japan, the third annual Japanese education fair provided guidance and first-hand counselling to over 1,000 students from Delhi's schools and colleges.

The fair will also be held in Bangalore and Pune.

"India's huge student population is a great attraction and we definitely want to increase our share in the pie," Satoshi Hata, general manager of the Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto told IANS.

Acknowledging that Japanese universities were not very popular in India, Hata said that currently only about 550 Indian students study in Japan as compared to 1.5 lakh in the US.

However, "affordable higher education", when compared to the US, UK and Australia, as well as a "holistic learning environment" tilts the scale in favour of Japan, Hata said.

The universities are offering English-only degree courses available at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, as well as an improvement in student support services like opportunities to learn Japanese and chances of an internship at Japanese companies.

"Japan's relationship with India has improved significantly, especially in terms of economic welfare. We now need to take this effort one step ahead and enhance human relationships. Education will play a major role," Japanese ambassador to India Takeshi Yagi said.

According to a 2012 report by the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore, the number of Indian students going overseas rose a stunning 256 percent -- from 53,266 to 189,629 -- between 2000 and 2009.

Will Panasonic retreat from Japan’s smartphone market benefit India?

Panasonic Corp will pull out of the smartphone market in Japan and pare its smartphone operations to outsourced production in emerging markets like India, the company’s president said on Wednesday. The Japanese electronics company, which has suffered $15 billion in losses over its latest two financial years, is staking its turnaround on a transformation from a consumer gadget maker to a supplier for other businesses. The architect of this turnaround plan, Panasonic President Kazuhiro Tsuga, has warned he would weed out any division that fails to meet a 5 percent operating margin goal within three years. Tsuga told Reuters in an interview that the company’s mobile division was likely to lose more than the 1.1 billion yen targeted loss for the financial year ending next March.

Panasonic’s mobile division posted an 8.1 billion yen loss last year. Panasonic Panasonic “It’s not acceptable for the company to be bleeding red ink like this, so we have to think about ways to develop assets that we do have in a more effective direction,” Tsuga said. While the company is stepping back from the consumer smartphone market, it has said it is developing smartphones for business use that would be similar to its popular “Toughbook” notebook PC series. Panasonic is one of several handset makers caught out by the meteoric rise of the two dominant smartphone makers – Apple Inc and Samsung Electronic Co Ltd – which have upended the traditional hierarchy of mobile players. Microsoft Corp this week agreed to buy Nokia’s phone business, which once dominated the global market but has slipped drastically in recent years. Japanese consumers, once partial to highly customised feature phones made by Panasonic, NEC Corp and Fujitsu Ltd, have since moved in large numbers to Apple’s popular iPhones and Samsung’s Galaxy series. In 2001, Panasonic was the second-largest handset maker in Japan, after NEC, with more than 19 percent of the market. Last year, it barely had a 7 percent share, far behind Apple’s 25 percent lead. Tsuga said Panasonic did not need to manufacture and sell its own smartphones under a vertically integrated business model, but will instead use the company’s brand to sell phones made by other manufacturers as it does already in India. The knockout blow to its business came when NTT DoCoMo Inc ,

 

Japan’s biggest mobile carrier and a loyal distributor for Japanese-made handsets, announced it would promote only Sony Corp’s flagship Xperia smartphone and the Samsung Galaxy during its summer campaign. NEC announced in July that it would pull out of smartphones after discussions to sell its handset business to Lenovo Group Ltd fell through, sources familiar with the matter said.

 

Despite economic gloom, JICA would continue to invest in India

With an annual investment commitment of Rs 24,000 crore and involvement in 66 projects across sectors, Japanese lending agency JICA re-asserted its commitment to continue to invest in India despite economic gloom and the falling rupee that has deterred most potential investors.

At an Indo-Japan seminar on Monorail, JICA’s senior representative, Ichiguchi Tomohide told Business Standard, “Our commitment and relationship with India is long term and this is the time to support India more.” JICA supported largely by the Japanese government has tripled its commitments since 2000 in transport, water, energy and forestry sector.

But the long term commitment is not without troubles. JICA emphasized the need for Indian to improve on its project planning and implementation. Addressing the seminar Tomohide stated that slow land acquisition, delayed government approvals, unfair risk distribution were the main challenges for India today. He also emphasized the need for improving the performance of contractors and enhance contract enforcement in India.

During a discussion, a senior JICA official also stated that the bureaucratic attitudes are unlikely to change and at the same time government needs to support the JICA more. ‘Sometimes a senior official or the related staff working on the project is abruptly transferred. This hinders the project’s growth and creates troubles for us’ , said a senior official.

JICA funded projects include five metros in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore and Chennai along with Western Dedicated Freight Corridor and Chennai-Bangalore Industrial Corridor. With an annual investment commitment of Rs 24,000 crore, India is today JICA’s largest partner.

India, Japan to strengthen co-operation in tourism sector

India and Japan have resolved to strengthen cooperation in the tourism sector. This was decided at a meeting between the visiting Japanese senior vice minister of land, infrastructure, transport and tourism, Hiroshi Kajiyama and Minister of State for Tourism(I/C), K.Chiranjeevi here today. The two sides agreed to move further on signing an agreement/MoU to promote bilateral tourism relations.

Chiranjeevi informed his Japanese counterpart about the various measures being taken to improve Golf Tourism and MICE Tourism in India, which may be attractive to Japenese tourists and businessmen.

Indian Tourism Minister invited Japan to invest in the low budget hotel sector where India has liberalized the FDI route. Chiranjeevi told his Japanese counterpart that there was a good potential for budget hotels for tourists coming from across the world to India. Kajiyama said that the proposal for investments in the budget hotel sector could form a part of the MOU between the two countries.

The Japanese Senior Vice Tourism Minister said that he would like to lead a delegation of businessmen from Japan in the next meeting in which he hoped to conclude the agreement/MOU with India. Kajiyama informed that two Japanese airlines are operating daily flights between India and Japan, which is an indication of the gravity of tourist traffic between countries. Japan has set for itself a target of attracting 10 million visitors from across the world to Japan.

Japan wants Pranab’s 2008 pledge in N-pact

Japan wants India to incorporate then foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee's statement before Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in 2008, which paved the way for New Delhi to carry out nuclear commerce, in the bilateral agreement for civil nuclear agreement under discussion.

The two countries on Tuesday resumed the fourth round of negotiations for the agreement in Tokyo after three years. The talks had remained suspended since the Fukushima accident in March, 2011. Sources said that progress was made in the talks despite the sticking points and that the two sides have agreed to have the fifth round of dialogue within three months.

The Indian side though told Japan that there is no need to make Mukherjee's speech — already made at an international forum — on how India planned to strengthen the non-proliferation regime a part of any bilateral agreement. Indian officials said other significant countries with which India has such deals like the US, Russia and France too chose to go by what was expressed at the NSG by India and did not insist on incorporating it in the bilateral agreements.

The commitments made by India were part of the statement by Mukherjee on September 5, 2008, which convinced the hold-out countries to give in to the proposal to allow India to indulge in nuclear commerce despite not having signed NPT. Mukherjee had said in the statement that India remained committed to a voluntary and unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing and to negotiating a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT). It also spoke about constantly updating its export control system to highest international standards and about working to strengthen the global non-proliferation regime.

Japan also wants a clause in the agreement that will allow it to call off all civil nuclear cooperation the moment India conducts a nuclear test. New Delhi insists that its commitment before NSG to a "voluntary and unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing'' is enough. While Japan is not insisting that India sign CTBT, it wants New Delhi to commit to a test ban in the bilateral agreement.

The third and last sticking point for the agreement is proving to be India's insistence on reprocessing rights. Sources said that like in the case civil nuclear agreements with other countries, India would like its agreement with Japan, too, to cover reprocessing rights for spent fuel.

During their meeting earlier this year, PM Manmohan Singh and his counterpart Shinzo Abe reaffirmed the importance of civil nuclear cooperation between the two countries, recognizing that nuclear safety is a priority for both governments. Japan agreed to resume negotiations without any preconditions.

India Inc. to boost SME co-operation with Japan: FICCI

Indian Industry is seeking to attract large doses of capital and boost the prospects of cooperation with Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and deepen the engagement between Indian and Japanese businesses, said the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) in a press statement.

A high-powered FICCI delegation led by Mr. Onkar Kanwar, Past President, FICCI and CMD, Apollo Tyres, is embarking on a two-day visit to Japan beginning September 4, 2013 to Japan in order to enhance ties.
The visit is considered significant as it comes at a time when emerging Asia is grappling with reverse flow of capital and infusion of external financial resources has become the lifeline of economies in the region.

The FICCI business delegation, the largest ever, comprises 70 companies and over 100 participants from diversified sectors represented by captains of industry, business heads, senior state government officials as well as top consultants. The delegation will participate in the 38th Joint Meeting of India-Japan Business Cooperation Committee being organized jointly by FICCI and Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI) on September 4-5, 2013.

The bilateral trade between India and Japan has seen substantial growth over the years and reached US$ 18.6 billion in 2012-13. The India-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) signed in February 2011, promises to boost trade to US$ 25 billion by 2014. There are already close to 1000 Japanese companies in India with investments worth US$ 14.75 billion.
To deepen our engagement with Japan and draw more and more small and medium enterprises into the Indian market, FICCI has come out with a 'Guide for Investment in India', a joint endeavor with Amarchand Mangaldas.

This report will be released at the 38th Joint Meeting of the India-Japan Business Cooperation Committee on September 4, 2013 in Tokyo and will be a valuable reference document for Japanese companies eyeing the Indian market or planning business expansion in India.