(Ottawa) The Prime Minister of Japan, Fumio Kishida, will make his first official visit to Canada next week.
Japan hopes that Canada can supply it with much-needed liquefied natural gas.
Mr. Kishida’s visit is part of his tour which will also take him to Washington and London. Japan is presiding over the G7 in 2023. It intends to encourage large investments in order to be able to cut ties with authoritarian regimes. In particular, he wants to increase the production of semiconductors and promote the recovery of rare metals from electronic waste.
Mr. Kishida is due to arrive in Ottawa on Wednesday. He will leave the Canadian capital the next day.
He will be the first Asian head of government to come to Canada since the federal government announced its Indo-Pacific policy in November. The Canadian government wishes to establish closer ties with this region of the globe in order to counterbalance the Chinese influence.
For its part, Japan wishes to get rid of its dependence on China and Russia for its imports of electricity and food. Mr. Kishida has created a Ministry of Economic Security for this purpose. He also wants to restart the nuclear reactors closed since the Fukushima disaster in 2011.
Trevor Kennedy, vice-president, trade and international policy, of the Business Council of Canada says Mr. Kishida will ask his Canadian counterpart, Justin Trudeau, for a greater commitment to export liquefied natural gas and will express an interest in hydrogen. .
“Japan is caught in a situation where it has to import liquefied natural gas from Russia. He has no other solutions”, underlines Mr. Kennedy who has already worked in the land of the rising sun.
Japan and South Korea have invested in the construction of a first liquefied natural gas terminal in Kitimat, British Columbia, which should begin operations in 2025.
Mr. Kennedy said that these two countries and Canadian companies are monitoring whether the deadline will be met, given the delays experienced by other major energy projects in Canada.
He adds that the Canadian energy sector, Tokyo and Seoul would like the federal government to stimulate the production of liquefied natural gas by expanding the terminal or building others. Otherwise, Japan and South Korea will remain dependent on Russia or even China.
Last month, Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly indicated that Canada’s goal was to be as close to South Korea and Japan as it is to Germany, France and the United Kingdom. -United.
Mr. Kennedy believes that the Canadian government should handle this file with a sense of urgency.
“We need to be more determined in this commitment,” he comments. We have to adopt a new state of mind and understand that they are our neighbours. »
Prime Ministers Trudeau and Kishida are expected to take stock of the action plan announced by the two countries in October. The two countries want to strengthen their cooperation in several areas, including the fight against illegal fishing and the sharing of military intelligence.
Mr. Kishida could also express his support for Canada’s desire to join the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity, an organization that brings together the United States and 13 other states in the Indo-Pacific region, including Japan, India , South Korea and Australia. Ottawa says all members want Canada’s participation.
In the press release announcing Mr. Kishida’s visit, Prime Minister Trudeau’s office recalled that “Japan is the third largest national economy in the world, one of Canada’s most important economic and trading partners, and the most important Canada’s bilateral foreign direct investment partner in Asia”.