Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun reported on September 2 that Japan, Australia and India held ministerial level talks in the form of video conference on the 1st, and formally reached an agreement on the construction of the supply chain of products and spare parts including ASEAN countries. All countries hope to take the manufacturing industry as the center, learn from each other's strengths and talents in terms of technology and talents, so as to enhance the overall competitiveness of Asia.
Japan's minister of economy and industry Hiroshi Fukuyama attended the talks. After the talks, the three ministers issued a joint statement. The statement stressed "the need to strengthen the industrial chain" as the new crown epidemic led to supply stagnation in many manufacturing industries. At the same time, the statement also explicitly called on ASEAN Member States and other countries to join.
According to the report, the idea of the three countries is: first, to establish a new consultation mechanism within the year, while listening to the opinions of the industrial circles and scholars and experts of various countries, while screening the industrial structure and other topics. The three countries also envisage cooperation in promoting the electronization of customs declaration procedures and training talents for technological development.
According to the report, Japan, Australia and India have joined hands mainly because each has its own advantages and can achieve good complementarity. Japan's manufacturing industry has strong technical strength, but it is short of resources and the process of industrial digitization is slow. It hopes to borrow from Australia, which is rich in rare metals and other resources, and India, which has a large number of information technology talents. India, which has a huge domestic market, can accelerate the construction of its imperfect infrastructure such as roads and ports with the help of cooperation with Japan and Australia.
The report also said that Japanese enterprises are increasingly dispersing production bases and reducing risks. The Japanese government raises funds from the society to subsidize and provide economic compensation to enterprises that move their production bases to ASEAN countries. As soon as the system is launched, there will be a large number of people. Originally, the budget size of the subsidy fund was about 23 billion yen (about 217 million US dollars), but when it was first raised from the public, it reached 1.5 times of the budget size.