Australia-Japan security pact ratified

John Howard and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ratified a milestone security agreement on March 13 during Howard's four-day visit to Tokyo. The pact's signing, which marked the 50th anniversary of the 1957 Japan-Australia trade pact, means Australia is now only second to the United States in the scale of its bilateral arrangements with Japan.
This follows shortly after a social security pact was signed by Community Services Minister Mal Brough and Japanese Ambassador Hideaki Ueda in Canberra on February 27. This agreement waives the need for citizens of one country to pay double-pension premiums when they work in the other.
Howard and Abe also made progress in their dialogues concerning a bilateral free-trade agreement, something which has been in the negotiation stages since Fujio Mitarai, chief of the Japan Business Federation, visited Canberra in early February.