TOKYO -- Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba seeks to advance his resource diplomacy agenda with a senior adviser's trip to Central Asia this week, hoping to leverage the technical capabilities of Japanese companies to support energy and mineral development in the region.
Akihisa Nagashima, a special adviser to the prime minister, departed Wednesday on a 10-day tour of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan amid calls by local governments to make the region more of a priority.
