Berlin: Japan and Germany will hold their first intergovernmental talks involving their prime ministers and cabinet members in Tokyo on Saturday, discussing ways to cooperate in the field of economic security to ensure stable procurement of energy and resources.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and six key members of his cabinet, including the foreign and finance ministers, will visit Japan for the talks.

Top German business leaders, including from the auto and energy sectors, are also expected to visit Japan.

Germany is apparently hoping to cooperate with Japan to diversify its sources of natural resources, as its dependence on China for important minerals such as rare earths is questioned at home.

In a speech on Thursday, Scholz said that Germany is looking for partners it can cooperate with on raw materials, adding that this will be a priority topic during the Japan trip.

Scholz is also slated to have a bilateral summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

They are expected to discuss the situations in Ukraine and in the Indo-Pacific region, ahead of a Group of Seven summit in the western Japan city of Hiroshima in May.

The Japanese and German leaders are also likely to have talks on ways to engage with the Global South, or emerging and developing countries mainly in the Southern Hemisphere.

JIJI  Press