As political tensions with India stay at an all-time excessive, the Trudeau authorities is getting ready to make some incremental progress with a key ally in its Indo-Pacific technique — Japan.
Japan’s minister of financial system, commerce and trade shall be in Ottawa Thursday to signal a memorandum of cooperation on electrical automobile provide chains.
Yasutoshi Nishimura shall be accompanied by a delegation of Japanese businesspeople representing its battery provide chain affiliation (BASC) and firms like Panasonic Power, Asahi-Kasei, Mitsubishi, Mitsui and Sumitomo.
Japanese media reviews previewing the journey over the previous week urged that in return for monetary, scientific and technical assist, the Canadian authorities intends to supply subsidies for brand new Japanese investments on this sector — much like different electrical automobile battery offers struck in collaboration with the provincial governments of Ontario and Quebec.
Whereas no contracts or particular funding shall be finalized on this journey, the Japanese enterprise representatives are anticipated to signal memoranda of understanding with Canadian corporations with whom they intend to share expertise and enterprise intelligence.
Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne, Commerce Minister Mary Ng and Pure Sources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson will all meet individually with the Japanese delegation earlier than their morning ceremony, then host a working lunch.
Each international locations chasing China’s EV dominance
Thursday’s occasion will mark the primary go to of a Japanese financial minister in a decade.
Earlier in Justin Trudeau’s tenure as prime minister, commerce relations with Japan soured throughout a politically rocky push to implement the Trans-Pacific Partnership — the Pacific Rim commerce deal now often called the CPTPP — after then-U.S. president Donald Trump withdrew in 2017. Champagne was commerce minister on the time; he now helms this newest push for overseas funding in Canada’s electrical automobile trade as trade minister.
When Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visited Canada final winter, he known as China a “central problem” for each international locations.
On the heels of that go to, a commerce mission was promised to additional collaboration between Canada and Japan within the electrical automobile sector. Each international locations are attempting to catch as much as and compete with China’s world dominance in vital minerals mining and processing and battery manufacturing.
Japan is working to diversify its commerce to rely much less on China and Russia and extra on democratic G7 companions like Canada. The CPTPP, which Japan championed as its largest member financial system after the American pullout, stays central to that technique.
Automotive commerce liberalized in 2018
Automotive commerce between Canada and Japan was liberalized when the CPTPP took maintain in 2018. Canada agreed to chop its tariffs on Japanese imports however a last-minute side letter was required to make clear some components of the deal, together with the interpretation of regulatory requirements.
On the time, it was unclear how properly Canadian corporations would be capable of straddle competing guidelines and priorities as soon as Canada had liberalized automotive commerce with the European Union (underneath CETA, its Complete Financial and Commerce Settlement), Japan (underneath the CPTPP) and South Korea (underneath its bilateral commerce settlement), whereas nonetheless sustaining its elementary NAFTA (now CUSMA) provide chain relationships within the U.S. and Mexico.
With geopolitical and safety tensions rising in Asia, all these democratic buying and selling companions have a standard political and financial crucial to compete with Chinese language manufacturing and displace it if attainable.
To ensure that each Canada and Japan to transition quicker to zero-emission automobiles in pursuit of their respective local weather change targets, they should velocity up new investments and supply new elements for his or her automotive provide chains.
Trudeau met with enterprise leaders in Japan and South Korea throughout his go to to the area for the G7 final Could.