5 agreements signed during Japanese PM’s visit to PHL

A total of five agreements have been signed between the Philippines and Japan following a summit meeting attended by President Rodrigo Duterte and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzu Abe (Pictured) on Thursday at Malacanang Palace. (Photo: Avito C. Dalan/ Philippine News Agency)

MANILA – A total of five agreements have been signed between the Philippines and Japan following a summit meeting attended by President Rodrigo Duterte and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzu Abe on Thursday at Malacanang Palace.

The agreements signed during the two-day state visit of Prime Minister Abe to the Philippines include:

–  Exchange of Notes (EN) on the economic and social development grant worth JPY 600 million (PHP258 million) for high speed boats and other counter-terrorism equipment for the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG);

–  Memorandum of Cooperation (MOC) on the Low Carbon Growth Partnership/Joint Crediting Mechanism which will promote investments and the use of technologies, products, systems, services and infrastructure to achieve low carbon growth in Philippines;

–  MOC between the PCG and the Japan Coast Guard (JCG) which involves the maritime cooperation to promote maritime safety, security and marine environment protection through joint exercises, visits by patrol vessels and aircraft, and capacity enhancement;

–  MOC between the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) of the Philippines and Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) of Japan for proof of concept and testing of road traffic information system through data broadcasting; and,

–  Loan Agreement and Guarantee Letter for Harvesting Agribusiness Opportunities through Robust and Vibrant Entrepreneurship of Peaceful Transformation.

The HARVEST Project is a five-year project of the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP), which is a financial intermediary of HARVEST, that shall finance eligible investments of agribusiness enterprises, farmers’ organizations or cooperatives, and Micro Small and Medium Enterprise (MSMEs) in support of agriculture and fisheries production and related services in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao.

On the other hand, the MOC between PCOO and MIC will involve the signing of the ICT Pilot project to test the effectiveness of the cloud-based ISDB-T Digital Terrestrial Television Broadcasting for Road Traffic Information System to be broadcast by the People’s Television Network (PTV).

The MOC is part of the mother MOC signed during a three-day official visit of President in Japan in October last year.

Prime Minister Abe is in a two-day official visit to the Philippines upon the invitation of President Duterte.

Abe is the first head of state to visit the country under the Duterte presidency. The Philippines is also the first country visited by the Japanese leader this year.