At Quad, Suga Thanks Biden for Lifting Import Curbs on Japanese Food Products | Full Transcript

India, Australia, Japan and the US on Friday pledged to work together for ensuring peace and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific and the world, as top leaders of the Quad grouping met in person for the first time ever amidst muscle-flexing by an assertive China in the strategic region. In a way, Quad would play the role of ‘Force for Global good‘, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his short address.

Prime Minister Suga of Japan, like the other three leaders, stressed the importance of the first-ever in-person Quad Summit, saying this event demonstrates strong solidarity between our four nations and an unwavering commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.

Full transcript of his address:

PRIME MINISTER YOSHIHIDE SUGA: Joe, Prime Minister Modi, Scott, it’s a great pleasure to see you again.

Under Joe’s leadership, as promised in March, we are here for the first-ever in-person Quad Summit. This event demonstrates the strong solidarity between our four nations and our unwavering commitment to the common vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific.

The Quad is an extremely significant initiative by four countries who share fundamental values, cooperating for the cause of realizing a free and open international order based on the rule of law in the Indo-Pacific.

To date, the Quad, has been promoting practical cooperation in extensive areas to deal with regional challenges, including Covid-19.

At this summit, I hope we can take stock of concrete progress achieved so far and discuss ways to further expand the Quad cooperation in new areas, such as infrastructure and clean energy, and to promote people-to-people exchange in science and technology.

I’m sure that we would be able to have an extremely fruitful meeting.

Further, the lifting of import restrictions by the United States against Japanese food products — including rice, vegetable, and other produce — from Fukushima Prefecture, which was a request I made to Joe, in April, is a major step in supporting the recovery from the earthquake and tsunami. And we are most appreciative.

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