Romanian president travels to Japan, Singapore this month

Romania’s president Klaus Iohannis will pay an official visit to Japan and a state visit to the Republic of Singapore on March 6-10. According to the Presidential Administration, the visit to Singapore will be the first of a Romanian head of state in the last 20 years.

President Iohannis will be in Japan from March 6 to 8. He will meet with His Majesty Naruhito, Emperor of Japan, prime minister Fumio Kishida, and the presidents of the two houses of the National Diet of Japan. Moreover, the Romanian leader will travel to Kyoto for meetings with local officials.

During the visit, the Romanian president and the Japanese prime minister will sign a crucial joint declaration on the establishment of the Strategic Partnership between the two countries. It will be the second strategic partnership concluded with an Asian state after the one with South Korea.

“The signing of the document thus ends an extensive process of consultations and negotiations, five years after the adoption of the decision to launch this Strategic Partnership within the dialogue between the president of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, and the late prime minister Shinzō Abe, in Bucharest,” the Presidential Administration said.

According to the same source, the establishment of the Strategic Partnership with Japan “will mark the advancement of Romanian-Japanese cooperation at the highest level and the transition to a higher stage of capitalizing on the bilateral potential […] on three key dimensions: foreign policy and dialogue on security issues, economic cooperation and development assistance, respectively cooperation in the fields of culture, science and technology, innovation, research and development.”

Japan is the largest Asian investor in Romania. There are currently 397 commercial companies with Japanese capital in the country, which generate over 40,000 jobs.

And, according to the Presidential Administration, there is more room for growth in fields with the highest level of innovation, such as the development of SMR (small modular reactors) technology in Romania together with the US, the production and distribution of green hydrogen, the production of high-power optics, state-of-the-art infrastructure, such as the Brăila Bridge - a high-end engineering project, or the completion of the M6 subway line in Bucharest.

In addition, during the same visit, a Memorandum will be signed between the Ministry of Finance, Eximbank Romania and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, as well as a Memorandum of Understanding between ELI-NP Măgurele, the Japanese company Okamoto Optics and the Institute of Laser Engineering at Osaka University.