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Second day of Xavier Bettel's working visit to Japan
On his working visit to Japan, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Xavier Bettel, held bilateral talks in Tokyo with Yoko Kamikawa, Japan's Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Yoshimasa Hayashi, Chief Cabinet Secretary and President of the Luxembourg-Japan Parliamentary League.
The working visit began with extensive discussions on bilateral relations between Luxembourg and Japan, and ways of strengthening them still further, including in the context of the World Expo in Osaka in 2025. Cooperation in the fields of space, information and communication technologies, and finance were also discussed.
In this context, Minister Bettel is delighted to be able to announce two concrete results from this visit: the conclusion of technical negotiations with a view to the forthcoming signature of an aviation agreement, as well as the exchange of notes verbales on the establishment of a working holiday programme between Luxembourg and Japan. This arrangement will give young Luxembourgers and Japanese aged between 18 and 30 access to the local labour market for a fixed period in order to finance their stay and spend holidays there.
Minister Bettel and his Japanese counterparts also discussed international and regional issues, including the situation in Ukraine, Gaza and the Indo-Pacific. These exchanges reaffirmed the broad convergence of views between Luxembourg and Japan, particularly with regard to the defence of multilateralism and international law.
Press release by the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, Defence, Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade