Prime Minister Ishiba's Remarks at the Joint Press Occasion with President Lula of the Federative Republic of Brazil

Good evening, everyone. Boa noite! Thank you for attending this press occasion even at such a late hour.

As we commemorate the 130th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Japan and Brazil, I am truly pleased at this opportunity to welcome President Lula to Japan as our first State Guest since the COVID-19 pandemic. On behalf of the Japanese Government, I wish to express once again my heartfelt welcome to President Lula and First Lady Janja on their State Visit to Japan.

The traditional friendly relations that Japan and Brazil have enjoyed for so many years trace back to the conclusion of the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation in [1895]*1. Our bilateral relations have progressed remarkably over the past 130 years in a wide array of fields, including politics, the economy, the environment, culture and sports, to name just a few.

Our two countries now share common values and principles and act as strategic global partners who cooperate in the international arena. This relationship is also supported in human terms by the largest Nikkei (Japanese immigrants and descendants) community anywhere in the world, found in Brazil.

Today, President Lula and I enjoyed a frank exchange of views regarding a broad spectrum of fields.

As the international community becomes increasingly confrontational and divided, Japan's cooperation with Brazil will be essential, as partners leading the international community towards coordination. President Lula and I have launched the "Partnership on Peace and Strengthening Multilateralism" and confirmed that we will build up our dialogue and our cooperation in the fields of security and defense, among others.

During today's meeting, we again exchanged our views candidly regarding the international situation, including the situations in Ukraine, the Middle East, and East Asia. We confirmed that we will also continue to act in cooperation in our responses to regional affairs. Japan and Brazil are both members of the G4. As such, we have worked in concert to bring about the reform of the UN Security Council. This year as we commemorate the 80th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, we intend to cooperate further to realize concrete progress in this area.

The economic, trade, and investment relations between Japan and Brazil hold tremendous potential. Our two countries have until now built up mutually beneficial relations that take as their basis the complementarity we enjoy with each other. Taking this opportunity, a Brazilian economic mission of more than 100 people has come to visit Japan, and approximately 80 public and private cooperation projects have been announced. This is a highly meaningful development and I welcome it very much.

The total value of direct investment into Brazil planned by Japanese companies for 2024 and beyond comes to 1.3 trillion yen, or roughly 45 billion reals. This amount is a clear indication of the great expectations held for the strengthening of economic relations between our two countries. I will work in cooperation with President Lula so that we are able to continue to steadily expand our trade and investment.

MERCOSUR, the Southern Common Market of South America, is an important partner for Japan. During our meeting, President Lula and I reaffirmed our strong ambition to raise Japan-MERCOSUR economic relations to greater heights. Also, at today's Japan-Brazil Economic Forum, business leaders from both nations presented us with request letters urging the early conclusion of the Japan-MERCOSUR Economic Partnership Agreement. We confirmed that Japan and Brazil will demonstrate leadership, launch a framework for Japan-MERCOSUR strategic partnership at an early time, and advance consultations aimed at deepening trade relations through that framework.

We will follow up on the matter of importing fresh beef in future meetings, including at the summit level. In addition, I conveyed to President Lula that we will dispatch experts for the purpose of information collection, as movement towards the next step.

Japan and Brazil are also partners that share responsibility in working to resolve global issues. With regard to measures for tackling environmental and climate change issues, we promised we would act in cooperation so that Brazil, as chair of COP30 (the 30th Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), can overcome the differences in stances between developed and developing countries and succeed in deriving balanced outcomes regarding emissions reductions, mitigating the impacts of climate change, and assistance for developing countries. We confirmed that, under the Initiative for Sustainable Fuels and Mobility (ISFM) that our two countries launched last year, Japan and Brazil will lead a global decarbonization effort in the automotive sector by harnessing both countries' strengths, namely Brazil's biofuels and Japan's high-performance mobility equipment. In addition, I told President Lula that in order to contribute to supporting developing countries' measures to tackle climate change, Japan has newly contributed US$5 million this year to the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage.

Also, under the Japan-Brazil Green Partnership Initiative, we will promote in both countries cooperation that balances environmental protection and sustainable development, taking as its pillars the restoration of degraded land for grazing livestock and countermeasures against illegal forest harvesting in the Amazon. We will do this while also proactively utilizing offer-type cooperation. The Cerrado development project that Japan and Brazil undertook together in the 1970s is still spoken about to the present day as a symbol showing the close cooperative relations between our two countries. Through the initiative to restore degraded livestock grazing land, which we can call our "second Cerrado cooperative endeavor," I hope to make Brazil's vast land tracts a lush green once again.

We confirmed that we will also promote people-to-people exchanges, which are the foundation of bilateral relations. We will also advance our consultations regarding the introduction of a working holiday system, in order to promote youth exchanges.

Next month, the curtain will rise on Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai. I very much appreciate Brazil's participation through its exhibit. I have heard that the Brazil pavilion is quite marvelously done. We will work together with Brazil to make the Expo a great success.

His Excellency President Lula has now paid a visit to Japan, and in the future, we wish to continue to more actively engage in mutual exchanges of visits by leading political figures. We decided that at the leader level, we will alternate with one of us making a visit to the other's country every two years. Based on the [Action Plan]*2 adopted by us today at the summit level, we will further deepen Japan-Brazil bilateral relations in a large number of fields, including, notably, diplomacy and security; the economy, trade, and investment; and the environment and climate change countermeasures. I intend to work hand in hand with President Lula going forward. Thank you very much and obrigado!