On an official visit to the countries of Southeast Asia, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has just left Indonesia and Vietnam to arrive in Thailand where he is meeting the Prime Minister on Monday morning. The key is the signing of several large contracts and a promise of cooperation on sensitive issues in the region.
With our correspondent in Bangkok, Carol Isoux
Japan is Thailand’s second largest economic partner and the largest expatriate business community in the country. Some 90% of the more than two million motor vehicles produced annually in Thailand are Japanese-branded. The Prime Minister’s visit therefore aims to strengthen this partnership and obtain significant investment in the production of electric vehicles.
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Directly linked to this automotive industry, the Eastern Economic Corridor, a vast network of infrastructure linking industrial zones to the Gulf of Thailand, east of Bangkok, is also a flagship project of the Thai government which hopes to receive support. economy from Japan to develop it.
Finally, the visit also has an important diplomatic component, on Burma first, plunged into a humanitarian and political crisis, then on Ukraine, whose Japanese Prime Minister recalled that the invasion was a violation of the international rights in force. , without being virulent towards Russia. The idea is always to propose an alternative path in the major global conflicts between the United States and China, the main trading partner of the countries of the region.