• Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrives in Japan on 3-day visit
• Both sides to firm up plans for purchase of indigenous US-2 aircraft

Tokyo (AFP): Japan is close to signing an agreement to supply amphibious planes to India, a report said on Monday, in what would be the first sale of hardware used by the military since a weapons export ban was imposed. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived here today on a three-day visit to Japan to invigorate bilateral strategic ties and push for a civil nuclear energy cooperation deal.

Singh will hold exhaustive talks with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe on Wednesday on the entire gamut of bilateral ties with special focus on giving boost to cooperation in defence, economic, energy and other areas. Singh, accompanied by his wife Gursharan Kaur, arrived here, his first halt in a two nation tour that will also take him to Thailand. During his visit, the two sides are set to firm up plans for Delhi to purchase the US-2, a domestically-developed aircraft used by Japan's armed forces. The sale, reported by the Nikkei business daily, would be the first of a finished product made by Japan's homegrown defence industry since rules were imposed restricting the export of weapons systems and other equipment. It would also mark a strengthening of the alliance between Japan and India, which both see rising China as a threat to regional stability. Experts say the aircraft must be classed as for civilian use if it is to comply with Japan's 1967 self-imposed ban on arms exports, part of the post-World War II anti-militarist drive. The US-2, which was developed by ShinMaywa Industries and has been sold to the Japanese navy at a price of roughly 10 billion yen ($99 million), has a range of 4,700 kilometres (2,900 miles) and can land in seas with waves of up to three metres (nine feet). In 2011 Tokyo eased the ban on arms exports, paving the way for Japanese firms to take part in multinational weapons projects.