Prime Minister Shinzo Abe flew to Bangladesh on Saturday for a two-stop tour of South Asia as the globe-trotting leader asserts Tokyo's interest in a region where it has ceded influence to China.

Abe becomes the first Japanese prime minister to visit Bangladesh in 14 years and on Sunday will be the first to travel to Sri Lanka in nearly a quarter of a century.

"I came here with 22 top leaders of business, ranging from infrastructure to safe water, with a strong hope of doing business in Bangladesh," Abe told a forum in Dhaka attended by more than 100 executives from both countries.