Japan and India will seek to bolster lagging business ties between Asia’s largest and third-largest economies. Japan is India’s biggest donor of economic aid, but trade and investment between the two have been unspectacular as Japanese companies have focused on China and Southeast Asian nations, such as Thailand and Vietnam. The two countries have already agreed to forge an economic partnership agreement within two years, and they also have an ambitious plan to build, with Japanese assistance, a $9bn industrial corridor with state-of-the-art infrastructure linking Delhi and Mumbai.

Tokyo is set to offer around $3.44bn in low-interest loans as offi cial development aid to help fund the construction of a high-speed freight line between New Delhi and Mumbai as part of the industrial corridor project.