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On March 25, the Director General of the DPJ International Department Yukihisa Fujita and member of the House of Representatives Hideo Hiraoka received a courtesy call from the Deputy Chair of the Duma Committee on Science and High Technologies Igor Nikolaevich Igoshin and the First Deputy Chair of the Duma Committee on North and Far East Issues Vasilii Ivanovich Usoljtsev.
At the start of the meeting, Fujita welcomed the guests, and said that Hiraoka had participated in “A New Japan-Russia Relationship: Specialist Dialogue 2010” (tentative translation) which was held last week in Moscow. Hiraoka said that during this specialist dialogue, lively discussions had taken place on a variety of issues including politics, the economy, culture and student exchanges, and he had received the impression that Japan could provide cooperation to areas such as the financial system. He also expressed the opinion that both nations possessed latent power which could be harnessed to develop a whole variety of cooperative relationships. With regard to territorial issues, he stated that it was important to deepen a relationship of trust through exchanges and discussions between parliamentarians, and that both governments should search for concrete proposals toward finding a resolution supported by this trust.
The Russian side said that Russia would like to emphasis the creation of an environment to enable Japanese companies to expand into Russia, as well as working to strengthen the relationship of economic cooperation between the two countries. With regard to territorial issues they expressed the opinion that it was desirable for both sides to set to work to find a resolution to this matter. Fujita commented that Russia import duties had been raised, and this was affecting imports of Japanese cars and other products. The Russian side responded that while they welcomed imports from Japan, they would like to further encourage Japanese companies to establish manufacturing facilities inside the country.
Fujita expressed the will to engage actively in creating a win-win bilateral relationship, and the meeting ended with the two sides confirming the friendship between and development of Japan-Russia relations.
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