The Philippines and Japan are set to sign on Monday the Philippines-Japan Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA) in Malacanang.

On the same day, Japanese Foreign Minister Kamikawa Yoko and Defense Minister Kihara Minoru are expected to pay a courtesy call on President Ferdinand R. Marcos in the Palace.

Marcos will witness the signing of the Philippines-Japan RAA shortly after the joint courtesy call of Foreign Minister Kamikawa and Defense Minister Kihara.

The RAA with Japan is a commitment made at the inaugural PH-Japan Foreign and Defense Ministerial Meeting or 2+2 in April 2022.

First formal negotiations on the RAA were held in Tokyo on November 29-30, 2023. It was led by the Department of National Defense (DND) along with the other delegation from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the Department of Justice (DOJ).

A virtual line-by-line reading of the RAA main text, the Agreed Minutes, and two records of discussions were held on June 11.

Foreign Minister Kamikawa and Defense Minister Kihara are in the Philippines for the 2nd Foreign and Defense Ministerial Meeting (2+2), the highest consultative mechanism to further deepen security and defense policy coordination and security cooperation between the two countries.

The Philippines and Japan celebrated 67 years of normalized relations since July 23, 1956, and 12 years of strengthened strategic partnership since 2011.

Japan is one of the Philippines’ four Strategic Partners with 264 bilateral agreements.

In 2023, Japan ranked as the Philippines’ second largest trading partner, with total trade amounting to $20.71 billion. In the same year, a total of 305,580 Japanese tourist arrivals were recorded in the Philippines. The figure is higher than the 99,557 tourist arrivals posted in 2022.

Japan serves as the second home to an estimated 314,428 Filipinos. Presidential News Desk