(L-R) Xavier Bettel, Luxembourg's Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade; Yoko Kamikawa, Japan's Minister of Foreign Affairs;
Credit: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan
Friday 26 January 2024 marked the second day of the working visit of Luxembourg's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Xavier Bettel, to Japan.
Minister Bettel had bilateral meetings in Tokyo with Yoko Kamikawa, Japan's Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Yoshimasa Hayashi, Chief Cabinet Secretary and President of the Japan-Luxembourg Parliamentary Friendship League.
On the agenda were in-depth discussions on bilateral relations between Luxembourg and Japan, as well as ways to strengthen them further, including within the framework of the World Expo 2025 in Osaka. Cooperation in the fields of space, information and communication technologies, and finance was notably discussed, according to the Luxembourg's foreign ministry.
In this context, Minister Bettel announce two concrete results of this visit: the conclusion of technical negotiations ahead of the signing of an air services agreement, as well as the exchange of notes verbales relating to the establishment of a working holiday programme between Luxembourg and Japan. This arrangement is expected to allow young Luxembourgers and Japanese aged eighteen to 30 to access the local job market for a fixed period in order to finance their stay and spend their holidays there.
Minister Bettel and his Japanese interlocutors also discussed international and regional issues, including in particular the situation in Ukraine, Gaza and the Indo-Pacific. The foreign ministry noted that these exchanges made it possible to reaffirm a broad convergence of views between Luxembourg and Japan, particularly with regard to the defence of multilateralism and international law.
