"I would like to support the companies cooperating with Russia. I want the trade corporations to play a leading role in it," Seko said at a meeting with Japan's trade association members, as cited by the Kyodo news agency.
Relations between Tokyo and Moscow have recently been re-energized. In September, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took part in the Eastern Economic Forum in Russia's Vladivostok, during which he held three-hour talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and presented the bilateral economic plan covering the issues of cooperation in the sphere of gas, oil, airports and ports modernization. One of the outcomes of the meeting was the announcement of Putin's visit to Japan on December 15, which had been postponed from 2014.
On November 20, Putin met with Abe in Lima, Peru, where both politicians confirmed progress on major cooperation issues.