Japan and the United States signed a pact Tuesday allowing "comprehensive cooperation" on transfers of technologies related to missile-defense systems.
The agreement is expected to ramp up business between Japanese and American defense companies, which are eager to design, produce and sell missile defense systems that can protect against "rogue" countries.
It is considered especially good news for the Japanese defense industry, which had been confined under the previous defense framework to reproducing U.S.-developed products under license and conducting only limited amounts of joint research with the U.S.