Takaichi Entrusts Ex-PM Kishida with Letter to Philippine President

Tokyo, April 27 (Jiji Press)–Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Monday entrusted her letter addressed to Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who is slated to visit the Southeast Asian nation soon. Amid lingering tensions in the Middle East, Takaichi hopes to speed up work on beefing up Japan’s cooperation with the Philippines in the fields of energy and other matters. The Philippines serves as this year’s chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. “I’ll be visiting (the Philippines) as a special envoy of the prime minister,” Kishida told reporters after his meeting with Takaichi. “I hope to hold concrete discussions on boosting the energy resilience of the economy,” he added. During his tenure as prime minister, Kishida spearheaded moves for the launch of the Asia Zero Emission Community framework, a decarbonization initiative involving mainly Southeast Asian countries. Kishida and lawmakers of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party who are members of an intraparty league promoting the AZEC initiative will visit Manila for three days from Thursday to exchange views with Marcos and other Philippine government officials as well as representatives of local companies. Marcos is set to visit Japan as a state guest in late May. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]