Far East

Iran and China will be closely cooperating in joint medicine production, IRIB News reported.

Iran's healthcare minister Marziyeh Vahid Dastjerdi is in China, holding talks with Deputy Head of China's Food and Medicine Administration Organization Wu Chen. Dastjerdi has been in China since Sunday, upon the invitation from Chinese authorities.

According to Dastjedi, Islamic Republic of Iran currently produces 96 percent of all its medicine domestically, including biological medicaments and herbaceous drugs.

Japan planned to sign a contract with the United States next month for the purchase of four F-35 stealth fighter jets despite a price increase for the aircraft, local media reported Monday.

The fighter jets are set to be delivered before the end of fiscal year 2016 and may cost about 138 million U.S. dollars per unit. The Japanese government is making arrangements with the U.S. for the purchase as part of the budget in the current fiscal year which ends next March, Xinhua reported.

Senior Parliamentary Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan Ryuji Yamane arrived on a visit to Uzbekistan.

On Thursday he held a meeting at the Foreign Ministry which was attended by Japanese Ambassador Yoshihisa Kuroda.

As the Foreign Ministry said, during the negotiations the sides exchanged views on the status and prospects of Uzbek-Japanese relations, as well as on regional issues.

The Kazakh Ministry of Industry and New Technologies and the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry agreed to cooperate, Kazinform reported.

The parties signed six bilateral documents on cooperation, including a memorandum on economic cooperation, which envisages 40 joint projects in nuclear and petrochemical spheres, mining and metallurgical complex, and in the field of new technologies within the meeting of Kazakh minister Asset Issekeshev and Japanese Minister Yukio Edano on Tuesday.