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TOKYO, JAPAN - INDIAN Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in an interview published on Tuesday he hoped to wrap up an elusive free trade agreement with Japan by the end of the year.
The two countries failed to meet a goal of reaching a trade deal by mid-2008 or to achieve visible progress in time for a three-day visit by Mr Singh to Japan starting on Tuesday.
But Mr Singh, speaking to Japanese journalists in New Delhi on Monday, said that fast-growing India and Asia's largest economy would both benefit from a free trade agreement.
'We are very keen that before the year is out we should have an agreement on a comprehensive economic partnership,' Mr Singh said in the interview, as quoted by the Yomiuri Shimbun.
'There are great complementarities between the economies of the two countries', Mr Singh said.
Talks between the two countries have been bogged down over how much to reduce tariffs and whether Japan will ease its tight regulations to allow Indian generic drugs.
Mr Singh was due to meet on Wednesday with Japan's new prime minister, Taro Aso, a conservative who has long advocated building relations with fellow democracy India.
The two leaders are expected to sign a loan agreement for Japan to fund a 1,468-kilometre rail connection between New Delhi and Mumbai, aiming to improve India's creaky infrastructure.
A Japanese press report on Saturday said that the loan would total 450 billion yen (S$6.64 billion), the biggest-ever amount Tokyo has provided for a project overseas.
But Japan is unlikely to pursue a deal on nuclear energy with India, a foreign ministry official here said.
Japan, the only nation to have suffered atomic attack, has been critical of India's refusal to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
India earlier this month signed a landmark deal with the United States that gives New Delhi access to nuclear technology after being shut out for decades.
Both Mr Singh and Mr Aso are expected to head on Friday to China for an Asian-Europe meeting.
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