A webinar was held on 28th December 2020 under the auspices of the Karachi Council on Foreign Relations (KCFR), chaired by its Chairman Ikram Sehgal and moderated by Member Board of Governors, KCFR, Mr. Moin Fudda. The Ambassador of Japan to Pakistan H.E. Matsuda Kuninori was the Chief Guest.
Commodore (Retd) Sadeed Malik, Secretary General/CEO KCFR welcomed His Excellency, saying that it was a great privilege and an honour to have him in our forum. He gave a short introduction about KCFR, a prominent think-tank in Karachi which normally deliberates in the field of foreign relations and economic affairs. He said KCFR was founded by late Justice (Retd) Saeed uz zaman Siddiqui and after that “we have had Chairman Federal Minister Lt Gen Moin Haider and then we have Chief of Naval Staff who was also an Ambassador as our Chairman, then we had another Ambassador chairing us, now we have Mr. Ikram Sehgal as our Chairman. Sir, we normally deliberate in the field of foreign affairs and we have as members many of the former ambassadors, generals, admirals and elite captains of industry of Karachi. We have entered into MOUs with 12 international institutions. I now request one of our senior members of our Board of Governors, Mr. Moin Fudda to conduct this webinar, he is the former Managing Director of the Karachi Stock Exchange, the present Chairman of CDC and a Director in Pak Suzuki company”.
Mr. Moin Fudda welcomed the participants and His Excellency Ambassador Extraordinary Mr. Matsuda “who has to his credit four decades of foreign relations service, he has rich experience of serving in Japan, USA, Russia, Israel and Hong Kong. A senior fellow and Director of Research in the Japan Institute of International Affairs as well as Director General of NIPA in Japan. Ladies and gentlemen, it is an honour and privilege on behalf of KCFR Chairman Mr. Ikram Sehgal and the KCFR Board to present to you the Diplomatic Minister of highest rank of Japan, His Excellency Matsuda. Thank you very much”.
His Excellency Ambassador Matsuda thanked KCFR for the warm welcome and remarks, saying that he was delighted to accept the invitation by one of the most prestigious institutions of Karachi, the KCFR. Some of you might be aware that Karachi has a special place in the memory and history of the Matsuda family. My father-in-law lived in Karachi in 1961-62 as a young businessman seconded from Bark of Japan and my father-in-law fondly cherished and always remembered the good days and the slightly wild days he spent in Karachi. He had a spacious office and living quarters in one of the most prestigious hotels at that time, Hotel Metropole.
Without further ado, let me briefly explain what I am going to tell you today. I will briefly touch upon some of the aspects of Japan-Pakistan relations and then I will be happy to take any questions. His Excellency then displayed the image of a green page saying that the page showed eight important figures which we “at the embassy always take into consideration” in planning and executing Japan-Pakistan relations, particularly the size and structure of Pakistan’s population. The number of Pakistanis according to estimates is rising and Pakistan will be surely catching up with Indonesia and even the United States to become the third largest country in terms of population by the mid of the 21st century. Still Pakistan is a very young country in terms of its population structure and Pakistan continues to bring out many talented people across the world. Now if you turn to production Pakistan is one of the top ten countries in agricultural production and with many more schemes in mind we continue to conduct our diplomacy with Pakistan. I would particularly like to share with you how Pakistani expatriates living in Japan are the constructive and law-abiding members of Japanese society, they contribute particularly to the development to the automobile industry in Japan as well as the food industry. For me personally I would like to give credit to the Pakistani community in Japan for introducing to the Japanese people, Cricket. Now thanks to the support of the Pakistani community in Japan, as of today, more than 300 cricket teams are registered with Japan’s Cricket Council. I also know that Karachi is one of the most important cricket cities in Pakistan and I would like to warn you that soon a Japanese cricket team will be coming to compete with the Pakistani cricket team this is my dream.
His Excellency then showed a map with Pakistan banging in the middle of many South Asian countries, the Middle East and China. He said “I strongly believe that Pakistan’s future mainly derives from Pakistan’s strategic location. Pakistan is the gateway to Afghanistan, the Central Asian Republics, as well as the western part of China and Pakistan provides these land-locked countries with outlets to the international markets. I would like to particularly mention the very important role which has been and continues to be played by the Pakistani government and the Pakistani military and international organisations in facilitating the peace process in Afghanistan. We strongly believe that with progress in the Afghan peace process we can see the very unique opportunity of creating regional connectivity and regional economy and social development. As far as Japan is concerned, we are ready to and willing to cooperate with Pakistan in the regional development of the entire region which covers starting from Pakistan, Afghanistan, the CARs and further down the road into the future Iran, China and India will also be included.”
His Excellency then turned to history. Pakistan helped Japan in the wake of its defeat in World War II. First diplomatically, then economically. The Ambassador then displayed a picture which showed Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Zafarullah Khan signing the San Francisco Peace Treaty with Japan. The newly independent Pakistan had sent a delegation to San Francisco in 1951 together with allied countries to sign the Peace Treaty and welcome Japan back into the international community. The following year, in 1952, Japan and Pakistan officially established diplomatic relations, opening embassies in Karachi and Tokyo respectively.
Japan’s post war economic recovery started from light industry, particularly the textile industry such as spinning industry, dyeing industry, textile manufacturing and many other related branches. Pakistan was one of the largest exporters of cotton, cotton yarn and cotton cloth to Japan throughout the 50s, 60s, 70s and well into the 80s. The large cotton trade between Pakistan and Japan naturally brought in many Japanese companies, including trading houses, banks, insurance companies, logistics companies as well as many other related companies to Pakistan. Karachi soon became one of the five largest business centers abroad for Japanese companies alongwith New York, London, Hong Kong and Singapore. Some of you might remember that Japan Airlines used to fly to Karachi from Tokyo way into the 1980s. Karachi unfortunately lost some of the glory and luster but still Karachi is home to many Japanese companies today, including automobile and related industries.
Ambassador Matsuda added: “Now let me turn to the highlights of the early stages of Japan-Pakistan historical relations. In 1957, the then Prime Minister of Japan Kishi visited Pakistan and became the first Japanese PM to do so. By the way, PM Kishi was the grandfather of the former PM Shinzo Abe. An epoch-making event took place in January 1962 when Their Imperial Highnesses the Crown Prince and Princess visited Pakistan. This official visit was to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations. In later years this young couple ascended the throne and abdicated last year but before leaving for Islamabad to assume the post of Ambassador to Pakistan my wife and I had the honour of an audience with Their Majesties, the Emperor and Empress. They talked fondly about the memory of their visit to Pakistan when they were young, a newly-wed couple. So, this was one of the most significant highlights in the history of Japan and Pakistan
In spite of the pandemic this year both Pakistani and Japanese governments made efforts to continue our dialogue starting with the official visit of then Minister of Economic Affairs Mr. Azhar in January, then in February the President of JICA and also a good friend of mine, Kitaoka came to Pakistan and met the PM Imran Khan as well as Mr. Qureshi, the Foreign Minister. But after that because of the pandemic we stopped engaging face to face and we organised some tele conferences, for example between our Foreign Minister Motegi and Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Qureshi in May and thereafter in August between our Defence Minister Kono and COAS Pakistan Army Gen Bajwa. Many other such dialogues took place during 2020.
I have to remind you that the last time a Japanese PM visited Pakistan was back in 2005 when PM Koizumi visited. From the Pakistani side Dr. Arif Alvi visited Japan in 2019 and participated in the coronation of the new Emperor. With this as the background you can easily imagine that both the Pakistani and Japanese governments want to continue such exchanges of both PMs in the future and we are working to achieve this.
Now let me turn to the history of the economic cooperation between Japan and Pakistan. Japan is one of the largest donors for Pakistan and we are continuing to do that. I will not go into the details of each and every project. The three pillars of Japan’s development support to Pakistan are firstly, improving the economic infrastructure, with emphasis on water infrastructure, water supply, water management, etc. The second area is improving human security and social infrastructure with emphasis on building educational institutions, training institutions as well as healthcare institutions and disaster risk and disaster management institutions. The third area is ensuring safety and security including security systems for ports, airports and border security systems. This year witnessed very successful cooperation between Japan and Pakistan fighting against the common problem of COVID-19 and desert locusts. As I told you Japan and Pakistan enjoy a great history of friendship and cooperation and whenever necessary Japan is ready to cooperate with its Pakistani counterparts to deal with many issues that Pakistan has to face.
I will now turn to trade relations between Japan and Pakistan. Pakistan imports from Japan almost six time more than its exports to Japan. This trade gap has been a chronic issue between the two countries we are fully aware of this and fully understand that we have to find a way to rectify this trade gap. Looking at the future of Japan-Pakistan economic relationship there are some priority areas and issues that the Japanese Embassy is working on. Our number one topic is raising exports to Japan. As I mentioned at the start, Pakistan is one of the top ten agriculture producing countries in the world and we have noticed that a lot of the Pakistani agriculture produce have a very good reaction in Japanese markets, particularly mangoes, basmati rice, dates and sesame are very promising items and Japanese companies both here in Pakistan as well as at the end of the logistics supply chain in Japan are working very hard, inspite of the COVID19 in 2020, and have succeeded in increasing our import of mangoes, basmati, dates and sesame. There is another area which we think is a very promising one and that is the fishing industry. Pakistan enjoys one of the longest and most beautiful coast lines which stretches more than 1500 km from the border with Iran down to the border area with India. This is an area very rich in fishing resources, unfortunately though Pakistan’s fish industry is not well established. This is an area where the Japanese government and the Japanese private sector can work together to bring in new investment so that we can work with our Pakistani counterparts to promote the fishing industry of Pakistan, where fish can be exported to Japan or to other third countries. Another topic is investment promotion. We at the embassy are trying very hard to bring new investment to Pakistan from Japan, particularly with emphasis on those investments which can substitute imports or which can strengthen the exports of Pakistan. For example, when it comes to industries that can substitute imports of Pakistan, Japanese companies that are now interested in investing in areas such as dairy products, everyday use products and pharmaceutical products. As for those industries that can strengthen export industries – Japan is very much interested in increasing its investment and diversifying our investment portfolio in automobile industry. Agriculture, as I mentioned, is very promising, but exporting agriculture produce is one thing but we can add value by processing agricultural products and even fishing products to produce semi-finished or finished products. This way we can easily find markets for Pakistani products. I would like to particularly emphasize on one of the harbinger investments made by a Japanese company, Morinaga Milk. This company has opened up a full-fledged manufacturing facility in autumn 2019 in Lahore to produce dairy products, particularly baby formulas. I hope that Morinaga’s decision will be followed by many other Japanese companies which are particularly strong in food processing areas.
The pandemic has been hampering international tourism but I fully understand that tourism is one of the priority areas for Pakistan and I also remember there was a time when many Japanese tourists would flock to tourist areas in Pakistan. I really hope that we can find a way to revive Pakistan as a tourist destination to Japanese customers. I also hope that the ever-increasing safety and security situation in Pakistan makes Pakistan not only the favourite, but also the safest tourist destinations not too far away in the future.
Speaking about investment, we should not forget the energy sector. Oil and gas are believed to be found in Balochistan province; this is a very important area which we are looking into for investment opportunities. Some Japanese companies have been working very hard to bring oil and gas from abroad to Pakistan so that they can cooperate with Pakistani counterparts.
The third and one of the most promising areas is human resource cooperation between Japan and Pakistan. As I stated earlier Pakistan will soon become the third largest country by population which will comprise of a lot of young and talented people while Japan for many reasons continues to suffer from a shrinking population, in essence a shrinking labour force. After numerous discussions, both in government and in society, Japan has finally decided to open up its labour market. With this as the background, the Japanese government signed two important documents with the Pakistani government. One is an MOU about a Technical Internship Programme while the second document is an MOU about a work visa regime for specified skilled workers. The technical intern programme is mainly intended for young Pakistani workers to come to study in Japan and the work visa regime covers 14 areas to provide job opportunities to Pakistanis. Pakistan is renowned for its workers who are employed in many parts of the world and soon its skilled and semi-skilled workers will find employment opportunities in Japan also.
So these are the highlights which I think are very important for Japan-Pakistan relations not only for today but for many years to come. In conclusion I want to share with you the most important thing which we should do together i.e. first we should bring Pakistan back to be one of the frontrunner countries in relation with Japan. For that matter we have a rich common history which goes back almost seven decades to tap into and secondly, we can work together to improve the perception about Pakistan. I hate to admit, but for many reasons Pakistan suffered and still suffers from of gaps between the reality of Pakistan and the image of Pakistan in Japan, so this is an area where we can work together to improve and bring out the true face of Pakistan to Japanese people. For these two reasons I particularly see an important role and responsibility of Karachi Council of Foreign Relations. As far as the Japanese Embassy is concerned, we are also interested in creating a new network of Think Tank to Think Tank and intellectual exchanges between Japan and Pakistan. I do hope the KCFR will join us in the robust intellectual programme which we are going to create in the year 2021 and beyond.
Thank you very much.
Moin Fudda introduced Mr. Kaleem Farooqui as “the founder member the Pakistan-Japan Business Forum, as a Board Member of KCFR and the Chairman of the Forum of which you, Excellency are the patron-in-chief. Mr. Farooqui is one of the few persons who have frequently visited Japan and I would like to open the floor with his remarks”.
Thank you, Moin Sahib. Excellency it is nice to see you and for the participants let me tell you that I have had a lot of interaction with His Excellency Matusda and that we are lucky to have an ambassador here like His Excellency and in Japan Pakistan’s ambassador Mr. Imtiaz Shaikh who are rigorously working so that we can develop a closer relationship. So, thank you very much for a very comprehensive report, there are lots of opportunities available between Pakistan and Japan and Excellency, you have done a tremendous job and taken a lot of initiatives. Let me mention a few, you have talked about the skilled labour which is a very big thing for Pakistan and I will take up this matter with Islamabad. Another thing that we should work for is to get your Prime Minister to visit Pakistan within your tenure because the last visit by the PM of Japan was in 2005 and you told me that it was almost done for the PM to come to Pakistan this year. I do not know what happened, perhaps you might like to throw some light on it. Thank you very much Sir.
Thank you Kaleem San. I hate to hold the pandemic as the only culprit but because of this pandemic we have had to change or postpone many diplomatic activities including visit at the highest level to Pakistan. Let us try to bring back some of the planned events in 2021 or 2022. By the way we are going to witness the 60th Anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations in the year 2022, so I think the year 2021 and 2022 is going to be very crucial in our relations but will also give us some great opportunities. So let us work on that together, thank you.
Q1) Mr. Khalid Zaman Khan: Excellency, I recall that I used to read the Exim Bank was willing to invest in the Karachi Mass Transit Programme. Over the next decade or two, I have been reading about this bank investing in KMTP but it has not happened yet. My second question is about the role of Japan in QUAD in which India is a member and from the Pakistani perspective there is always an apprehension vis a vis this relation between the two countries. How would you define the role of QUAD with respect to Pakistan? Thank you.
Thank you very much for your questions. Regarding Karachi Mass Transit Project and possible investment by Japan’s Exim bank, I remember there was a plan originally but after that for many reasons Japan’s participation in the financing of this project has been cancelled. Having said that, we are also closely following the new Karachi Re-Development Project which has been promoted by the government and that is supported by the local business community. I do hope that in the future we can find new areas where Japan can be a partner in the Karachi redevelopment. I do know that like many of the internationally renowned big cities, Karachi also has many opportunities and problems and we are closely following the development of Karachi.
In response to your second question for those who may not be familiar with the QUAD, it is a Group formed by four countries, the USA, Japan, India and Australia. As far as implications for Pakistan are concerned, let me assure you that QUAD does not hamper any relations with Pakistan nor is QUAD intended against Pakistan or any other country. Like many other countries that get together to work on issues like economy, etc. QUAD is one of them so please remain assured about this aspect. Thank you very much.
Q2) Mr. Sirajuddin Aziz (Banker): How does Japan evaluate the One Belt One Road initiative, in particular CPEC. Do you plan to use the eastern ports of China to export through CPEC to Africa and Pakistan?
In your opening intro you were kind enough to mention that I was in Hong Kong right before I was stationed to Pakistan. While I was in Hong Kong, I closely followed the BRI including the CPEC. I know the background and ideas behind the BRI which is China’s idea of providing economic and social infrastructure to many countries located through the Eurasian continent. We fully understand that there continues to be a great gap between supply and demand of the economic and social infrastructures and for that matter in addition to China, Japan and many other countries as well as international organisations such as ADB, the World Bank and many other institutions are working to narrowing this gap. This in a nutshell is the BRI and as for Japan’s participation, you might be interested to know, each country has its own idea, plans and concept. With due respect to the BRI and CPEC promoted by China and its cooperation with Pakistan, in Japan we have our own concept and ideas to work with the receiving countries, including Pakistan in terms of the economy and a social development. If and when different concepts overlap and find a point of agreement, there is a possibility of cooperation. Here I would like to emphasize, particularly in the case of CPEC, we closely follow the developments of the projects in CPEC and we see that some projects are really conducive to inviting investments from some countries, including Japan while other projects provide opportunities for the private sectors’ participation. I want to emphasize that one has just to remove the political facade of the projects. This is how Japan and Japanese business sector approach the BRI and CPEC and I hope that you could understand the point I am making. Thank you very much.
Q3) Ms Sadaf Khalid: If you would invite the top tour operators from Japan, after the pandemic situation is a bit stable, who could promote Pakistan as a tourist destination especially for religious tourism, particularly Buddhist tourism? My second question is how could we invite investors from Japan who would be interested in building tourist resorts in the northern areas of Pakistan. I represent the Commonwealth Entrepreneurs’ Club, UK as an Ambassador for Tourism for Pakistan. Thank you very much.
Yes, your question about tourism is exactly what our embassy and the private sector is talking about. Let us keep our fingers crossed so that the pandemic situation becomes slightly stable and subsides in 2021 and beyond. First we would like to bring back a group of Japanese tourists under travel companies to Pakistan so that we can, with collaboration of Pakistan, organize tours of the promising Pakistani tourist spots. They can start to plan their own tourist operations from Japan and secondly, they can also find new investment opportunities in some areas, including hotel bookings, logistics, restaurants, etc. Quite frankly, for any country that would like to be a great tourist destination one aspect should not be neglected and that is the presence of a good Japanese restaurant. Believe me, if only Pakistani hotels from the North down to Karachi have one or two nice authentic Japanese restaurants it would be an additional attraction for the tourists not only from Japan but from all the seafood loving countries.
Q4) A couple of questions in the chatbox were put before His Excellency. With regard to the human resource mentioned by him and signing of MOU people are interested to know as to when this is likely to begin?
As I told you there are three areas where promising people in Pakistan can apply for employment opportunities either in Japan or with Japanese companies. Let me start by saying that highly skilled workers in ICT area i.e. Information and Communication technology are meant. Actually we are already working on that both with the Pakistani side and the Japanese side and there are already Japanese human resource companies which are interested in opening branches in Pakistan, particularly in Karachi. I do hope that sometime in 2021 we are going to see them opening up in Karachi. They will be solely responsible in promoting human resource business between Japan and Pakistan.
As for the second area, the technical training programme, this is already available and for that matter Japanese companies are being encouraged by the embassy and government to turn to the promising Pakistani engineers and workers to apply for the technical training programmes.
As for ICT, for those of you who graduated from Universities with an ICT Diploma you can get yourself registered with the Pakistani human resource company and in the meantime the Japanese human resource company will contact their Pakistani counterparts to find the right people for Japanese companies
Mr. Moin Fudda then asked Mr. Majeed Aziz, a member of KCFR if he wanted to say something. Mr. Aziz addressed His Excellency and said that “we at the Employees Federation of Pakistan have a very strong relationship with the AOTS in Tokyo and over the years hundreds of Pakistanis have been provided training by AOTS. In the past they would not come to Pakistan but when I was the President and was invited there, I convinced the President of AOTS that Karachi was very peaceful, very vibrant and when they came here, they saw for themselves and now we have a continuous programme with AOTS. Of course, this year we met via ZOOM but they did come here, including the Managing Director and now things have improved a lot and they are now thinking about enhancing the training programme in Pakistan which will also help a lot of our people to go over there and train. Thank you very much.”
His Excellency thanked Mr. Aziz for his input. He shared what our embassies are doing in Tokyo and in Islamabad. “I have asked the Pakistan government to send a new Attaché to the Pakistani Embassy in Tokyo and he or she will be arriving in the first quarter of the next year and he/she will be directly in-charge for the human resource business between Japan and Pakistan. I do hope your Embassy in Tokyo will also help Japanese human resource companies, Japanese companies interested in providing technical training or those who are interested in applying for the 14 specified visa regimes. As for my Embassy, we recently hired a new Pakistani staff, she speaks impeccable Japanese and she is also helping those Pakistani companies and Pakistani individuals who are interested in getting information about how to apply through one of three channels about getting employment in Japan. We also continue to put new information on our websites so please do look at our websites. Thank you very much.
Mr. Ikram Sehgal, Chairman KCFR said that it was a tremendous hour with His Excellency. “It has been a revelation to hear all the things that you managed to tell in that hour, the presentation was tremendous by any standards. The knowledge that we, and a lot of other people, have gained and as you know that even though the participants may be limited in this sense but by tomorrow when the complete video will be available on YouTube and other websites, you will see that hundreds of thousands of people will have seen this programme. Excellency, Pakistan and Japan, like you said, have had a long relationship and we are very grateful to Japan because you have always been of great assistance to us and we have historical connections, as you mentioned, particularly the Buddhist religious sites which I think need to be expanded then obviously, which is of great interest because as you know we are looking to diversify our manpower, skilled manpower particularly because obviously the other sources are drying up and we need to diversify. I think you have some excellent ideas and I really commend my colleagues, Mr. Moin Fudda, the Secretary General Commodore Sadeed Malik, my very good friend Kaleem Farooqui and others of my colleagues and I look forward to further interaction as I am not going to limit it to one small episode and any time that you feel that there is something that can add to the relationship between Pakistan and Japan or anything that can foster further relations because I was very interested as not many people know about Pakistan’s long coastline that has never been exploited but needs exploitation, that needs investment, that needs people to come and see what all is going to happen. All these things can be brought together, certainly US$1 billion from your side or maybe US$160 million from our side is not much but this must expand manifold. More than the money is the human-to-human contact which I think not only your predecessor but you have carried on in that vein and we are very grateful to you for having been with us during this hour. Thank you, Excellency.
