TOKYO: The UAE’s Special Envoy to Japan, Sultan Al-Jaber, who is also the UAE minister of industry and advanced technology, met with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo on Friday. Al-Jaber is visiting Japan to participate in the G7 Ministers’ Meeting on Climate, Energy and the Environment in Sapporo and is also the COP28 president-designate. The climate conference will take place in Dubai in late November and early December. Al-Jaber handed an invitation to Prime Minister Kishida for COP28, and expressed his renewed hopes for strengthening bilateral relations with Japan. In response, Kishida stated that Japan is fully committed to contributing to the negotiations at COP28 and will also lead discussions at the G7 Hiroshima Summit. Kishida expressed his appreciation for the UAE’s stable supply of crude oil to Japan and its consideration for the participation of Japanese companies in the upstream development over the years. The two leaders confirmed cooperation between Japan and the UAE toward stabilizing the international oil market, and agreed that it is essential to further promote pragmatic energy transition and climate action in order to achieve decarbonization. Kishida offered his congratulations on Sheikh Khalid bin Mohammed bin Zayed being appointed as crown prince of Abu Dhabi, and stated that Japan attaches great importance to the strategic partnership with the UAE. In November, Al-Jaber and Kishida signed the UAE-Japan Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Initiative, which aims to bolster relations between the two countries and advance their common interests by encouraging further diplomatic, economic, political, trade and investment collaborations. The agreement aims to boost ties in areas such as technology, manufacturing, infrastructure, artificial intelligence, health care and SMEs, as well as other sectors such as agriculture, environmental preservation, climate change solutions, education, defense and security. Earlier on Friday, Al-Jaber met with Japan’s Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, who congratulated him on his appointment as the COP28 president-designate.