Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. welcomes the additional capabilities of Japan as he looks forward to the completion of its Reciprocal Access Agreement with the Philippines.

During the joint press conference with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III, Japanese Minister of Defense, Kihara Minoru and Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles in Honolulu, Teodoro stressed that "Japan has been a traditional industrial, commercial, and tourism partner of the Philippines for some time now."

"So it is a logical facet of our bilateral relations that we welcome the increase in defence capabilities, particularly in the technological field of Japan, of which the Philippines can be a partner or a recipient of. We welcome the additional capabilities of Japan because as we said, they are important in our scheme of things, particularly in this quadrilateral summit in enforcing regional peace in the area," he said.

"And we look forward to Japan's increasing role, not only bilaterally with the signing of our Reciprocal Access Agreement, but all the resultant benefits that this and other multilateral initiatives will bring to the region," he added.

The joint press conference between the four defense ministers was held following their first quadrilateral meeting in Hawaii on Thursday.

Kihara and Teodoro said they were looking forward to the completion of the RAA between their countries.

Kihara noted that the "early settlement of this negotiation (agreement) will further activate and vitalize the bilateral joint exercise and training of the Philippines and Japan military units and expected to contribute to the reinforcement of the cooperation among the four nations." Robina Asido/DMS