List of Outcomes: Prime Minister of Japan’s visit to India for the 16th India-Japan Annual Summit (July 02, 2026)

India and Japan have jointly declared they will expand bilateral and global strategic partnership with a thrust on growth, shared prosperity and resilience. They also reaffirmed the importance of enhancing bilateral financial cooperation and collaboration on payment systems between India and Japan, including local currency transactions. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister TAKAICHI Sanae concluded two days of official and delegation talks as part of Takaichi’s maiden visit to India as Prime Minister. Takaichi is on an official visit to India from 1-3 July 2026 for the 16th India-Japan Annual Summit. Prime Minister Takaichi was accompanied by a high-level delegation including senior officials, CEOs and industry leaders.

India and Japan agreed to scale the India-Japan Special Strategic and Global Partnership not only for mutual benefit but also for a resilient and prosperous Indo-Pacific and beyond. Officials exchanged Memoranda of Understanding on advancing cooperation based on three priority areas: defence and security cooperation; economic partnership including economic security, energy resilience, technology, and innovation; and people-to-people exchanges. Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is on a three-day official visit to India, 1st through 3rd July 2026. This is her first since assuming office in 2025 to participate in the 16th India-Japan Annual Summit. India-Japan deep cooperation is reflected in eight official visits by Prime Minister Modi since he assumed office.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met and received her warmly, and Takaichi also received a ceremonial welcome at the Presidential palace, the Rashtrapati Bhawan. Welcoming Takaichi, Modi told media that the visit opened a "new chapter" in the global strategic partnership between two of the world's five largest economies. Modi called Takaichi his "younger sister" celebrating her milestone status as Japan's first female prime minister. Modi acknowledged that Japan has played an important role in India's growth story. He also underlined a shared priority was a rule-based Indo-Pacific and joint initiatives will drive peace and stability in the region. A core agenda in India-Japan talks has been to advance plans for a local-currency settlement framework to allow direct Yen-Rupee transactions for bilateral trade.

Japan has local-currency settlement arrangements in Asia for example with Indonesia. Under discussion is a proposed framework wherein Japanese entities that are non-residents in India would be allowed to open accounts with Indian banks. This would enable financial institutions in both countries to settle cross-border payments directly in yen and rupees, without routing transactions through the US Dollar. The Reserve Bank of India has allowed foreign entities maintaining special rupee vostro accounts to invest surplus balances in central government securities. RBI had approved 156 special rupee vostro accounts with 26 Indian banks for 123 correspondent banks from 30 trading partner countries.

The two Prime Ministers welcomed the increasing private investment from Japan to India, and progress made to realize the target of 10 trillion Yen set at the last Annual Summit. The countries will push utilizing the fast-track mechanism under the India-Japan Industrial Competitiveness Partnership (IJICP). The Japanese side recognized the facilitation extended to leading Japanese financial institutions and banks to strengthen their presence in India's banking and non-banking financial sectors in accordance with applicable laws and regulations. Other areas to strengthen cooperation were identified as logistics, textiles, food processing, agriculture, automotives, and industrial capital goods under IJICP. They also recognized the importance of strengthening collaboration in the healthcare sector, including pharma supply chains.

Importantly, the two Prime Ministers reaffirmed their commitment to promoting collaboration in Africa as envisioned in India Africa Forum Summit (IAFS) mechanism and Japan’s Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) as well as the Economic Region Initiative of Indian Ocean-Africa. The two countries will formulate the Strategic Outlook for Expanding Japan-India Cooperation in Africa and industrial concentration in India to establish a hub for trade and investment and to take forward the India-Japan Cooperation Initiative for Sustainable Economic Development in Africa.