MOSCOW -- Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was to express his intention to seek an international agreement on the reduction of plastic waste in his keynote speech at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday morning, according to sources.
Abe will seek to reach the agreement during the Group of 20 meeting of major advanced and emerging economies in Osaka in June. As the chair of the G20 gathering, he is expected to propose a framework in which each country is obligated to take measures for reducing plastic waste, an increasingly serious problem, the source said.
In his Wednesday speech in Davos, Abe also plans to express his view that he will lead the G20 debates on making international rules for the distribution of data related to personal and corporate information. He will call for the establishment of a new negotiating framework -- the "Osaka track" -- by member countries of the World Trade Organization.
In addition, Abe will stress the importance of promoting free trade, bearing in mind the trade friction between the United States and China.
As examples of measures to promote free trade, Abe will refer during his speech to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade pact by 11 countries, including Japan and Australia, that took effect at the end of 2018, and the Economic Partnership Agreement between Japan and the Europen Union, which will take effect in February.
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