“Lithuania is an open, innovation-oriented economy with a number of talented people, and it highly values its like-minded partners in the Indo-Pacific region, as well as its strategic partner Japan. We see a lot of potential in lasers, robotics, AI, life sciences, medical and genetic research as well as agro-industry and other sectors–all of these are areas in which Lithuanian companies are very experienced and where we could cooperate with Japan even more closely,” said Prime Minister Šimonytė.
Head of Government noted that Lithuania attaches great importance to the Strategic Partnership Document approved this week together with Prime Minister of Japan Fumio Kishida and will make efforts to create favourable conditions for its implementation in practice.
At the meeting with the Japan-Lithuania Parliamentary Friendship group, Prime Minister thanked Mr Nakasone for his personal contribution to fostering bilateral relations and parliamentary ties over the years and discussed the issues of relevance to both countries.
“Inter-parliamentary relations play an important role in the implementation of our strategic partnership, I am glad that they are vibrant, and I thank you for your efforts to bring Lithuania and Japan closer together–our countries are geographically distant but share the same democratic values,” said Prime Minister Šimonytė.
The participants of the meeting discussed the opportunities to develop economic cooperation between the countries, the security challenges in Europe and the Indo-Pacific region, Russia's war against Ukraine and the support for the latter–the need not to get tired of supporting the Ukrainian people's struggle in defence of their country as well as the principles of democracy and the rule of law; the Russian blackmail in the areas of energy and food security as well as nuclear threats werw also discussed.
Prime Minister Šimonytė emphasized that Lithuania sees Russia as a long-term threat, noted the importance of the G7 member states’ position as well as the significance of Japan's stance.
At the end of her visit to Japan today, Prime Minister gave interviews to the Japanese national broadcaster NHK, newspapers Mainichi Shimbun and Nikkei, and attended a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan (FCCJ).
