Abe pushes for wider use of shinkansen in India

September 14, 2017

Ahmedabad, India- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed Thursday hopes that India will use his country's Shinkansen bullet train technology for more high-speed railway projects.

Abe touted the safety of Shinkansen while giving a speech in Ahmedabad, western India, at a groundbreaking ceremony for the country's first high-speed railway project using the Japanese technology.

"India can become the factory of the world" by combining the high technologies of Japan and the quality human resources of India, Abe said.

The Japanese public and private sectors will join forces to build Shinkansen railways that cover the whole of India and are for all Indian people, Abe said. The ceremony was joined by his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, as well.

Construction for the 500-kilometer rail link between Ahmedabad and Mumbai is expected to start in 2018 for completion in 2023.

Japan plans to help meet some 80 percent of the total costs, estimated at 1.8 trillion yen, over a decade.

Six other high-speed rail projects are planned in India.

Meanwhile, Abe is expected to agree to provide India with some 190 billion yen in soft loans to finance infrastructure development, during a meeting with Modi, set for Thursday.

The sum includes 100 billion yen for a project to build India's first high-speed railway between Ahmedabad and Mumbai using Japan's Shinkansen bullet train technology and 38.6 billion yen for road improvement in northeastern India.

The loans will cover five projects including the railway link in western India. Abe hopes to further advance economic ties with India by helping the country improve productivity through investment in infrastructure projects.

Abe is also expected to agree to provide some 2.2 billion yen in grant aid for a development project in Varanasi, Modi's constituency. The Japanese prime minister arrived in India on Wednesday.

The two leaders are expected to agree to set up a public-private consultative body to discuss details of exports of Japanese nuclear technologies to India. A bilateral nuclear cooperation treaty took effect in July, opening the way for such exports.

In addition, Tokyo and New Delhi will reaffirm the target of fostering 1,000 Indian teachers for the Japanese language over the next five years as part of measures to boost personnel exchanges between the two countries.

Abe and Modi are expected to confirm that Japan and India will strengthen security cooperation in the face of China's maritime expansion. The two leaders are also expected to reaffirm bilateral cooperation over North Korea's provocations. Jiji Press