Germany and Japan intensify cooperation on trade issues and forward-looking technologies – signing of a joint statement

Dr Ulrich Nussbaum, State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, and Mr Shigehiro Tanaka, the Japanese Vice Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, today reaffirmed in a joint statement their intention to strengthen the German-Japanese cooperation on trade issues and forward-looking technologies. Both sides agreed to work even more closely together on multilateral trade issues, renewable energies and hydrogen, Industrie 4.0 and artificial intelligence, space, automated driving and the promotion of start-ups.

In times of economic uncertainties and trade conflicts, this means that two of the world’s largest economies will now work more closely together. Japan and Germany are facing similar challenges in terms of the climate change, demographic development and the digitisation of their societies.

Japan is Germany’s second most important trading partner in Asia and the third largest economy worldwide. The volume of trade between Germany and Japan has risen continuously since 2009, and totalled €44.2 billion in 2018. The EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement, which entered into force at the beginning of 2019, offers great opportunities and is already having a positive impact.

The Joint Statement can be found here (PDF, 216 KB).