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Philippines to reinforce coast guard capacity

The Philippines will further cooperate with Japan in reinforcing the capacity of safeguarding its coast.
The Philippines will further cooperate with Japan in reinforcing the capacity of safeguarding its coast.

Visiting Philippines Foreign Minister Albert del Rosario reached anagreement on the issue with host Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida duringtheir meeting in Tokyo on May 22.

The movefollowed a recent fact-finding tour of a Japanese delegation to thePhilippines to consider providing 10 coast guard patrol shipsfollowing the latter’s official request in December, 2012.

The FMs affirmed to speed up efforts to realise the ship provisionplan and were also unanimous in coordinating actions to strengthenbilateral strategic partnership.

They exchangedviews on regional issues of common concern, especially that on theKorean Peninsula, agreeing to arrange a future meeting forhigh-ranking diplomats.

Earlier, PhilippinePresident Benigno Aquino on May 21 announced a 1.8-billion USD plan toupgrade its military equipment in order to reinforce the Navy’s capacityof safeguarding the country’s territorial sea.-VNA
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