TOKYO: Japanese trade minister Yasutoshi Nishimura and US Trade Representative Katherine Tai agreed on Wednesday to work more closely to achieve an agreement on the envisioned Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity, or IPEF.

“I want Japan and the United States to lead efforts to establish robust supply chains among like-minded countries,” Nishimura said at the beginning of his meeting with Tai in Tokyo.

In the past two years, the two counties have worked closely on creating supply chains, sustainable trade and inclusive growth, Tai said.

Under the IPEF, an economic bloc of 14 countries including Japan and the United States, basic rules will be established in the four areas of trade, supply chains, clean economy, and tax and anticorruption in order to correct overdependence on the Chinese economy.

Tokyo and Washington aim to realize an agreement in at least one of the four before a meeting of trade ministers of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum member economies in late May, which will be hosted by the United States.

The two countries hope to secure accords for all four by the time of the APEC summit in November.

Nishimura and Tai also discussed the failure of Nissan Motor Co.’s Leaf to qualify for US tax credits for electric vehicles.

“I’ll use every opportunity to lobby the US side to move things forward for Japanese automakers,” Nishimura told reporters after the meeting.

JIJI Press