President Klaus Iohannis said on Tuesday that the Romanian-Japanese relations will be raised to a strategic partnership level "in the near future."

"Today we agreed that we share the same values and strategic objectives, we have similar evaluations in terms of security in a so volatile environment, as well as common economic interests. In this context, we have decided together with Mr Prime Minister Abe to launch the necessary demarches so that in the not so far future we raise the relation between Romania and Japan to a strategic partnership level," the head of state said at the Cotroceni Presidential Palace.

President Klaus Iohannis said that the visit of the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe represents "a historic moment."

"It is the first official visit paid by a prime minister of Japan in the history of the Romanian-Nippon relations and the first visit of a high official in 2018 so important to us - the centennial year of modern Romania. At the same time, it is a special context. This year we celebrate five years since the establishment of the renewed partnership between our states, after we celebrated last year 15 years since lifting the bilateral relation to a partnership level. Also last year there were 100 years since the appointment of the first extraordinary representative of Romania to Japan," the head of state said.

He pointed out that the discussions showed that the Romanian-Japanese relations have reached a superior level of maturity, which will lead to the further intensification and consolidation of the sectoral cooperation in all areas.

Iohannis pointed out that the talks also aimed at the economic dimension of the Romanian-Japanese partnership and that he encouraged the conduct of more Japanese investments in Romania and the increase in commercial exchanges.

The Romanian President mentioned that he also discussed with the Japanese official the cultural dimension of the relations between Romania and Japan, including the International Theatre Festival of Sibiu.

Furthermore, the discussions aimed at the more enhanced collaboration between the European Union and Japan.

"I congratulated Mr Prime Minister for the special success of the recent completion of the negotiations of the Agreement of Economic Partnership between the Union and Japan, which will have a positive, concrete effect on the relation with Romania as well," Iohannis said.

He also said that he discussed with the Nippon PM about the current developments inside the EU, with a focus on the process of re-launching the European project, as well as about Brexit. AGERPRES (RO - author: Florentina Peia, editor: Mihai Simionescu; EN - author: Adina Panaitescu, editor: Rodica State)