## Chapter 8: Strengthening International Cooperation, Contributions and Competitiveness for the Sustainable Development of our Country

## Section 1 – Establishing Mechanisms for International Cooperation and Coordination as well as Taking Global and Regional Initiatives

## (1) International cooperation on environmental and energy issues in the transport sector

In order to strengthen international efforts on environment and energy in the transport sector, which accounts for 23% of the world's $ CO_{2} $ emissions, transport ministers of major countries and representatives of relevant international organizations met at the “Ministerial Conference on Global Environment and Energy in Transport” (MEET) hosted by MLIT in January 2009 in Tokyo and adopted a Ministerial Declaration, in which ministers shared the global long-term vision of realizing low-carbon and low-pollution transport systems, and agreed to facilitate developing countries' efforts through the sharing of best practices and enhanced capacity building. On the basis of the Ministerial Declaration, MLIT then hosted the Senior Officials Follow-up Meeting in June of the same year in Hakodate, where participants had active discussions from three perspectives – namely, “Strategy”, “Financing”, and “Capacity building” – to accelerate each country's efforts, and they reached a consensus on further fostering of a global network among transport officials and experts. The $ 2^{nd} $ Ministerial Conference is to be held in November 2010 in Italy.

MLIT also participates actively in the International Transport Forum (ITF), the international framework consisting of transport ministers of 52 countries that proposes the global direction of transport policies and measures. The Annual Ministerial Forums were held under the theme of “Transport and Energy” in 2008 and “Transport and Globalization” in 2009. Japan was elected as the chair of the Forum in 2012.

## (2) Strengthening cooperation within East Asia

The government of our country as a whole is assisting in wide-ranged aspects in order to ensure the stability and prosperity of the East Asia region.

Regarding the transport sector, the “ASEAN-Japan Action Plan on Environment Improvement in the Transport Sector (AJ-APEIT)” for implementing environmental measures in the transport sector, the “Operational Guidelines of the ASEAN-Japan Transport Statistics Database” for serving the development and sharing of transport statistics data essential for transport policy planning, and the “ASEAN-Japan Transport Partnership (AJTP) Work Plan for 2009-2010” was endorsed in the 7 $ ^{th} $ ASEAN and Japan Transport Ministers Meeting held in Hanoi, Vietnam in 12 December 2009.

In addition, for the $ 3^{rd} $ China-Japan-Korea Ministerial Conference on Transport and Logistics scheduled to be held in 2010, 12 action plans are being worked on. In October 2009, the $ 4^{th} $ China-Japan-Korea Tourism Minister’s Meeting was held and a Joint statement for the promotion of tourism exchange and cooperation between the three countries was released. Moreover, the $ 6^{th} $ China-Japan High-level Meeting on Transport was held in November of the same year, and opinions on logistics, transport, safety, and environment were exchanged. Furthermore, in March of 2010, the $ 6^{th} $ Japan-Korea High-level Meeting on Transport was held and opinions about public transport and logistics were exchanged.

In the realm of construction, the effort to establish the future cooperative relationship with construction related ministries and construction industries is carried out mainly in the countries of East Asia, through actions such as further pushing forward cooperation towards various issues regarding the construction administration of the two countries by holding the $ 5^{th} $ Indonesia-Japan Conference on Construction with the Public Affair Ministry of Indonesia in October 2009.

In maritime related activities, Japan is participating in the Partnership in Environmental Management for the Seas of East Asia (PEMSEA), which is implementing the sustainable development of East Asian seas. In November 2009, during the “3 $ ^{rd} $ PEMSEA East Asia Seas Congress” held in Manila in the Philippines, the “Manila Declaration on Strengthening the Implementation of Integrated Coastal Management for Sustainable Development and Climate Change Adaptation in The Seas of the East Asia Region” was adopted.

## (3) Measures for the formation of free and fair overseas construction markets

In order to secure a free business environment for the construction enterprises of our country to carry out business activities overseas, negotiations are being performed continuously for working with the countries they advance into, in order to develop the construction market environment, through abolishing and relaxing different regulations, and increasing the transparency of procuring procedures in places of diplomatic negotiation (e.g. EPA and WTO).

## (4) Measures for building a network of ministers in charge of the infrastructure of the Asia-Pacific region

With the aim of sharing know-how and skills and promoting mutual cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region, Japan advocated and established the Ministers' Forum on Infrastructure Development in the Asia-Pacific Region with the 20 countries/regions. In June 2009, the 7 $ ^{th} $ Forum was held in Singapore with the theme of “Integrating water infrastructure planning with sustainable urban development” and the Ministers' Declaration, as the achievement of the forum, was adopted. It was also agreed that the 8 $ ^{th} $ Forum of 2010 would be held in Japan.