India, Japan launch ambitious plan to exchange 500,000 people in five years, boost strategic partnership

New Delhi: India and Japan have outlined an ambitious roadmap to expand cooperation in human resource development, economic security, technology and mobility, with plans to facilitate the exchange of over 500,000 people in both directions over the next five years. The initiative includes the movement of 50,000 skilled professionals and emerging talent from India to Japan.

The details were shared by the minister of state for external affairs, Kirti Vardhan Singh, in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday while responding to a question on the India-Japan Joint Vision for the Next Decade.

The big exchange programme is one of the many components of the action plan for India-Japan Human Resource Exchange and Cooperation, which is part of the larger next gen people-to-people partnership. The programme is aimed at responding to workforce needs as well as enhancing ties in the long run through skills development, education and mobility.

According to the government, capacity building will be undertaken through vocational training, internships, researcher/student exchanges and the teaching of Japanese language in India.

The human resource partnership is one of the major pillars of the joint vision for the future decade shared by India and Japan, adopted at the 15th India-Japan Annual Summit that took place in Tokyo in August 2025. The framework consists of eight major priority sectors including economy, economic security, mobility and infrastructure, ecological sustainability, technology and innovation, health care, people-to-people connections, and state-to-prefecture cooperation.

Apart from workforce mobility, the joint vision also envisages greater engagement of India with the Global South through private investments and business cooperation. The government stated that the increasing industrial involvement of Japan in India would enable economic cooperation of India with South Asia and Africa within its MAHASAGAR vision.

Industrial collaboration is also taking place through the India-Japan Economic Security Initiative that emphasizes the development of resilient supply chain networks for critical goods and materials and collaboration in cutting-edge technology. In the 16th India-Japan Annual Summit conducted in New Delhi in July 2026, both nations issued a joint statement on economic security along with the release of Factsheet 2.0 on India-Japan economic security cooperation.

Yet another important project is the Next-Generation Mobility Partnership (NGMP) that helps improve collaboration in infrastructure, logistics, and mobility and also promotes manufacturing in India. The Memorandum of Cooperation on the NGMP was signed in July 2026.

Both countries have also made it clear that they would like to strengthen cooperation in some new emerging areas which include artificial intelligence, energy resilience, battery technology, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, biogas, and research and development. The India-Japan SME Forum has been set up for enhancing cooperation between start-ups and SMEs, with the areas ranging from space, agriculture, clean energy, to biotechnology.

Furthermore, the government also added that there would be an increase in people-to-people interactions through tourism, academic cooperation, and movement of skilled manpower. Subnational cooperation has also been expanded through cooperation between Indian states and Japanese prefectures through the India-Japan governors’ network for friendship and exchange, which was launched in February 2026.