President Asif Ali Zardari returned Pakistan late Wednesday night after three day visit to Japan during which Tokyo offered over Rs. 14 billion interest-free loan to Pakistan for rebuilding roads and bridges destroyed in the devastating floods in Khyber Pukhtoonkhwah.During the visit the President held a summit meeting with Prime Minister Naoto Kan, signed a joint statement that raises bilateral relations to “comprehensive partnership for peace and development and strengthening defence cooperation”.
The visit laid the ground work for a dialogue with Japanese investors in Presidency and made an impassioned plea to Japanese political and business leaders as how critical it was for their own security and development that Pakistan was helped in its existential war against militants.
Briefing journalists about the visit Spokesperson to the President Farhatullah Babar said that ground work was also laid during the visit for a tripartite conference of corporate leaders of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Japan to further explore the prospects of joint economic collaboration in the border regions for the uplift of tribal areas as a means to fighting militancy.

He said that in over a dozen interactions that the President had in three days with business and political leaders, the constant refrain of the President was that if Pakistan‘s economy was not shored up through trade and market access to wean away the frustrated and jobless youth from extremism, the loser will not only be Pakistan but the entire region, and the world including Japan.