158 Public, Private Deals Made between Japan, Central Asia

Tokyo, Dec. 20 (Jiji Press)–A total of 158 public- and private-sector cooperation deals, including in the fields of natural resources and digital technology, have been reached between Japan and five Central Asian countries, the Japanese government announced Saturday. The announcement was made at a business conference held on the sidelines of a two-day summit in Tokyo between Japan and the Central Asian countries–Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The deals include one under which a subsidiary of major Japanese trader Mitsubishi Corp. will purchase gallium, a rare metal used in semiconductors and other products, from a Kazakh corporation. Another deal calls for Japan’s NEC Corp., NTT Docomo Inc. and Toyota Tsusho Corp. to collaborate with a Uzbek company to test the IOWN next-generation optical communications infrastructure. “Important minerals are at the uppermost stream of supply chains in many industries, and their stable supply is crucial to the global economy,” Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said in a speech at the business conference. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]