(Eagle News)–The Palace on Saturday, June 1, hailed the successful four-day visit of President Rodrigo Duterte to Japan, where P288-billion worth of trade deals between the two countries were inked.
According to the Palace, the visit put “the Philippines’ strategic partnership with Japan on an even stronger footing.”
During Duterte’s and Abe’s meeting, the Palace said the two leaders “agreed to enhance bilateral cooperation in infrastructure development, trade and investments, agriculture, labor, defense, maritime security and maritime domain awareness, people-to-people exchanges, and the pursuit of just and lasting peace and progress in Mindanao.”
The Palace said the P288.804 billion worth of business deals signed during a forum organized by the Department of Trade and Industry and Japanese and Filipino executives would generate 82,737 jobs.
This was apart from the 25 billion yen the Palace said Japan committed for Mindanao’s development.
According to the Palace, the possibility of Japan accepting skilled foreign workers was also discussed, as well as regional maritime security, non-traditional threats, the Korean Peninsula tensions, free trade, and advancing the rule of law including in the South China Sea.
Duterte also emphasized developed countries should be held accountable for climate change, which results in natural disasters that are “more painful for developing nations and for the poorest of the poor,” the Palace said.
“The President likewise lauded the Philippines-Japan partnership as one that ’empowers rather than fosters dependency’ and is the ‘kind of relationship that we seek with other countries,'” the Palace said.
Duterte is back in the Philippines from his visit, his third since he became chief executive.
