Australia-Japan Joint Declaration on Economic Security Cooperation

1. We, the Prime Ministers of Australia and Japan, reaffirm our commitment to elevating our Special Strategic Partnership to even greater heights, grounded in trust, aligned values and mutual interests, and recognising that our prosperity, security and economic futures are deeply connected. To embody this ambitious, shared vision and advance our commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific, we hereby announce our Joint Declaration on Economic Security Cooperation,
2. Recognising economic and technological resilience is foundational to national security, this Declaration serves as coordinated, strategic guidance to advance our bilateral cooperation on economic security in a manner that enhances both strategic autonomy and indispensability, and strengthens economic resilience in the Indo-Pacific region as well as the international economic order.

Advancing Bilateral Cooperation

Policy Alignment through Bilateral Consultations

3. We will strengthen our mechanisms and better align our respective economic security policies through leveraging bilateral dialogues such as the Economic Security Dialogue, Economic Dialogue, the Joint Committee Meeting on Science and Technology Cooperation, Energy and Resources Dialogue, the Food Security Talks, and the Policy Dialogue for Telecommunications Resilience.
4. We are committed to sharing information and consulting with each other on economic security contingencies, including those related to geopolitical tensions, economic coercion or other significant market interruptions that may affect security interests of either country, and considering measures in response.

Driving Bilateral Investment and Trade Opportunities in Strategically Significant Sectors

5. We reaffirm Australia’s role as one of the most reliable suppliers of minerals and energy to Japan and Japan as an important source of investment to help build a strong energy and resource supply chain in Australia. We commit to enhancing cooperation to promote investment and trade opportunities in strategically significant sectors.
6. We are committed to elevating predictability and transparency of the investment environment consistent with market principles and private-sector ownership. In this regard, we will enhance promotion of our countries as favourable destinations for bilateral investment and trade, and facilitate deeper coordination between our strategic finance agencies.
7. We will further enhance collaboration on matters related to investment security through sharing information and providing updates on relevant respective policies on investment screening, including Japan’s plan to upgrade its legislation and establish a new committee on foreign Investment.

Strengthening Public-Private Partnerships

8. We will strengthen our public-private partnerships to maximise opportunities and enhance collective resilience, including by proactively seeking input from industries. We will encourage further exchanges on policy and research in our two countries, including deepening collaboration between institutions and among the think tanks to be established by the Government of Japan and those in Australia.

Cooperation on Energy, Critical Minerals, Food and Metals Processing

9. We express our strong concerns over all forms of economic coercion, and the use of non-market policies and practices (NMPPs) that are leading to harmful overcapacity and market distortions, as well as export restrictions, particularly on critical minerals, that could have a significant negative impact on global supply chains. We reiterate the importance of ensuring that, whenever implemented, export control measures should be narrowly defined, non-discriminatory, and in line with international law and practice, so as not to disrupt strategic supply chains, notably those for critical minerals.
10. In this regard, we affirm that transparent, diversified, secure, sustainable, trustworthy, reliable, economically efficient and resilient supply chains and access to key sectors are central to our economic security. We will work together to support comprehensive supply chain collaboration for key goods such as energy, critical minerals, food and other important industrial and manufactured goods including through bilateral and multilateral initiatives.
11. We will continue to deepen our partnership on energy security and supply chain resilience, the energy transition and decarbonisation, including through cooperation on conventional and renewable energy and resources. We will consult and share information with each other on the development and implementation of our respective energy and relevant policies and decarbonisation pathways, and commit to working together in alignment with our initiatives such as Australia’s Future Gas Strategy and Net Zero Plan, and Japan’s 7th Strategic Energy Plan and Partnership On Wide Energy and Resources Resilience Asia (POWERR Asia).
12. Critical minerals, including rare earth elements, are essential for advanced technologies and other industrial inputs. Recognising that Australia’s Critical Mineral Strategic Reserve is an important initiative to diversify our critical minerals supply chains and beyond, we are committed to working together to maximise our mutual benefits.
13. We will build on government-supported investment partnerships and recognise the strategic value of Japanese companies’ participation in critical minerals projects in Australia, including those for rare earths, gallium and others. We will pursue further opportunities for investment and offtake, including by developing new projects, ensuring stable operation of ongoing projects and working with the United States and other likeminded partners as well as Multilateral Development Banks. In this regard, recognising the important role of government-affiliated institutions, such as the Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security, Japan Bank for International Cooperation and Export Finance Australia in promoting private investment, we will cooperate to enhance coordination among these institutions.
14. We recognise the strategic value of retaining domestic smelting and metal processing capacity to our economies and industrial resilience, and that cooperation between us to bolster these capabilities strengthens our collective economic security. Capitalising on our complementary strengths in resources, technology and expertise, we will also address shared challenges in scaling processing capacity, including through cooperation on standards, certification and responsible supply practices that will promote investment in relevant fields, such as in low emissions aluminium and steel industries.

Innovation and Protection of Critical and Emerging Technologies

15. We will enhance our collaboration on research security and integrity, recognising that trusted research depends on both. We will strengthen collaboration on the management of foreign ownership, control and influence risks and other threats posed by critical and emerging technologies, while enabling responsible and beneficial international research collaboration through trusted research environments.
16. We will look for opportunities to further promote concrete cooperation between our governments, including national labs, private sectors and academia on critical and emerging technologies such as AI, data centres, quantum, biotechnology, space, undersea cables and telecommunications. Furthermore, we recognise the importance of academic exchanges and access to key research infrastructure, particularly in STEM fields, in promoting research and development, and commit to exploring measures to further facilitate such exchanges and access.
17. We recognise that innovation and advanced technologies are inseparable from our national and economic security and that collaboration in critical and emerging technologies, including in the defence industry, plays a vital role in strengthening our collective resilience and economic security. We are committed to further deepening cooperation between our defence industries through industrial and supply chain collaboration, leveraging technology transfer, and expertise sharing, with Australia’s General Purpose Frigate program as a catalyst for promoting such cooperation.

Enhancing Joint Engagement in the Indo-Pacific Region

18. We will enhance our efforts together, including through the Quad, the Asia Zero Emission Community (AZEC), the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the Partnership for Indo-Pacific Industrial Resilience (PIPIR), as well as with partners, in particular the United States and ASEAN to strengthen economic resilience in the region. This includes building resilient supply chains, supporting high-quality financially sustainable infrastructure, supporting the clean energy transition, including hydrogen sectors, and jointly tackling climate change challenges, NMPPs and resulting overcapacity, economic coercion, and disinformation. We will enhance collaboration with the region to share information and best practices while utilising relevant economic security toolkits.
19. We recognise that enhancing the region’s secure connectivity is essential to its growth and prosperity. Together, we will foster a safe, secure and trustworthy AI and digital ecosystem in the Indo-Pacific region, including by collaborative efforts in areas of AI, including through the Hiroshima AI Process, and in other areas of digital infrastructure such as telecommunications, undersea cables, data centres, and the all-photonics network. In particular, in the area of undersea cables, we will enhance our strategic coordination through more frequent discussions and reaffirm our commitment to protecting and maintaining secure undersea cables in the region and to cooperate in safeguarding this vital infrastructure.
20. We will continue to support the sustainable and inclusive development of the Pacific Island countries (PICs) including through supporting them in maintaining correspondent banking relationships and cooperating as co-chairs of the Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering with a particular focus on capacity building in the PICs.

Strengthening the Rules-Based International Economic Order

21. We share urgency of countering NMPPs and building economic resilience against economic coercion, including weaponisation of economic dependencies by means of export restrictions, and harmful overcapacity. In so doing, we affirm that a well-functioning rules-based multilateral trading system with the World Trade Organization (WTO) at its core, should continue to serve as the bedrock of our economic prosperity, resilience and security. To this end, we will work together to reform the WTO to make sure it is fit for purpose and addresses the challenges we face.
22. We will work together to ensure that the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) continues to support the prosperity of our economies, including by updating and enhancing the CPTPP and through continuing to expand it in line with the Auckland Principles, while ensuring its high standards. We will also continue to advance the Trade and Investment Dialogues between the CPTPP and ASEAN, and between the CPTPP and the European Union (EU).
23. We reaffirm the importance of the “Principles for Resilient and Reliable Supply Chains” recognised at the OECD Ministerial Council Meeting in 2024 and confirm our efforts to encourage all countries to support the principles.

Signed in duplicate at Canberra, Australia, on 4 May 2026 in the English and Japanese languages, both texts having equal value.