Japan PM due in Manila this weekend

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo. AP PHOTO/SHIZUO KAMBAYASHI

MANILA, Philippines–Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is due to visit Manila this weekend, arriving in the Philippines just after his party won control of the Japanese parliament on Sunday.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said Monday that Abe will visit Manila from July 26 to 27, confirming earlier Japanese press reports that the official was considering visits to Southeast Asia this month.

During his two-day stay, Abe is expected to meet with President Aquino III “to discuss bilateral cooperation and regional issues, and further advance the Strategic Partnership between the Philippines and Japan,” the DFA said.

“The visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will no doubt achieve a two-fold purpose: it will strengthen the personal relationship between the Prime Minister and President Aquino, and it will serve to further enhance the invaluable strategic partnership between the Philippines and Japan,” Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario told the Inquirer by text.

Abe returns to the Philippines nearly seven years since his last visit in December 2006, his first term as Prime Minister. Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party just took an overwhelming victory during Sunday’s elections.

He is making the visit just as the Philippines and Japan face common challenges in the disputed West Philippine Sea and the East China Sea, where both nations contend against territorial claims of regional heavyweight China.

Japan is one of only two Philippine strategic partners, the other being the United States. It was the country’s top trading partner in 2012, with roughly $13 billion or P528 billion in total bilateral trade last year and some P22.35 billion in investments in the first half of 2012.

It is also the largest source of official development assistance, with $593.3 million or P24 billion in both grant and loan aid disbursements in 2011, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

This accounts for 40 percent of total ODA disbursements on that year, the largest of the pie ahead of the United States’ $541.3 million or P22 billion.