Newsletter No. 629
News-Analysis
May 31, 2007

 

PAKISTAN WANTS JAPAN’S HELP TO DEVELOP AGRICULTURAL SECTOR

On May 28th and 29th, Foreign Ministers or other representatives of 43 nations met in Hamburg as part of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) process. Foreign Minister Taro Aso was present at this event and he held a private meeting with Foreign Minister Khurshid M. Kasuri of Pakistan.

The news which emerged from the meeting was a Pakistani request for Japanese aid in developing the agricultural sector of the country. Kasuri made comments to Aso along the following lines: “Pakistan has huge water resources but lacks the latest agro-technology… More Japanese cooperation is needed with the agriculture universities of Pakistan for promoting agriculture research… Pakistan has the potential to become a major food-producing country in the region with the application of latest technology.”

Aso replied that he would convey this request back to his government, and that they would consider what they could do to assist Pakistan in this sphere.

PAKISTAN OFFERS TRAINED LABOR FORCE TO JAPAN

In another story, a couple of weeks ago, Pakistan’s Minister for Labour, Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis Ghulam Sarwar Khan came to Tokyo and met with President Mitsuo Horiuchi of the Japan-Pakistan Parliamentarians’ Friendship League. Details are sparse, but it seems that the Pakistani minister was trying to encourage Japan to accept foreign workers from Pakistan, whom he described as being hardworking and well-trained. He noted that South Korea recently requested ten thousand workers for jobs in the fisheries and industrial sectors.

Currently, there are slightly more than 10,000 Pakistanis resident in Japan, making them the second-largest community of Muslims in Japan after Indonesians.