Japan deal ‘will boost research’

The EU and Japan have agreed on two landmark deals to increase trade as well as cooperation on research, technology and development.

Political agreement on the deals was reached yesterday at the 24th EU-Japan summit in Brussels. One of the deals, a free trade agreement referred to as the Economic Partnership Agreement, “will be the most important bilateral trade agreement ever concluded by the EU”, the European Commission said.

The economic agreement will remove “the vast majority” of the duties that EU companies pay to export goods and services to Japan, which amount to €1 billion annually, the Commission said. The value of exports from the EU to Japan, which at present is more than €80bn per year, could increase by as much as €20bn annually, it said.