The Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) will send one of its Mogami-class frigates to Australia for joint military exercises in the coming days, Defense Minister Gen Nakatani said Wednesday, as Tokyo vies with Germany for a lucrative contract to build new frigates for Canberra.

Nakatani said the Noshiro Mogami-class frigate will head to Australia for the drills from Monday through April 3, with the vessel also making a port call in the Philippines.

The dispatch is believed to be part of a push by Japan, one of two finalists with Germany, to win the contract with Australia for the joint development of new frigates. Canberra is expected to make a final decision on the matter by the end of the year.

If won, the contract would be the largest military export deal in Japan’s postwar history, offering a major breakthrough for the country’s moribund defense industry.

Nakatani said Wednesday that while taking home the contract would have "significance," the main purpose of the dispatch is to improve the skills of the MSDF and strengthen cooperation with the Royal Australian Navy — though he hoped that it would also improve mutual trust and lead to progress in Japanese-Australian defense cooperation.

“Japan and Australia share fundamental values and strategic interests, and we have formed a special strategic partnership in the Indo-Pacific region,” he said.

Under the Australian project, which has a budget of between 7 billion and 11 billion Australian dollars ($4.3 billion to $6.8 billion) over the next decade, Canberra is seeking seven to 11 general-purpose frigates optimized for undersea warfare to replace its Anzac-class warships.

To get the frigates as quickly as possible — the first one needs to be in the water by 2029 — the three initial vessels would be built overseas in the yard of the designer, while manufacturing of the remaining ships would transition to Henderson in Perth, Western Australia.

To meet this requirement, Tokyo is pitching an as-yet unfielded upgraded version of its Mogami-class frigates.

The Japan Times reported last month that Japanese defense officials have said they are taking “a more holistic approach” to the bid than was seen in Tokyo’s failed attempt to sell submarines to Canberra in 2016.

This has included the December launch of a joint public-private promotion committee exclusively for the endeavor, as well as a slick marketing campaign that has included an English-language video presumably directed at Australian and other international audiences promoting the Mogami’s strengths in terms of its stealth tech, interoperability, manpower efficiency and evolving unmanned capabilities.

But Japan is facing stiff competition from Germany, which is looking to win the contract with its bid to build Meko A-200 frigates. That model is an evolution of Australia’s current Anzac class of vessels, meaning its selection would ensure continuity.

Tom Corben, a research fellow with the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, said the visit by the Noshiro will be "a great opportunity" to showcase the degree of preexisting interoperability between the Mogami-class vessels and the rest of Australia's naval fleet, as well as the Japanese ship's stealth and multidomain warfare capabilities.

"Demonstrating that the Mogami-class can easily operate and integrate with Australian forces, and in Australian waters, will certainly do a lot of good for the Mogami's profile and for Japan's chances of securing the Australian frigate tender," he said.

The bid, Corben added, is "Japan's race to lose."

"All of the relevant parts of the Japanese system appear lined up behind this bid in a way that they weren't necessarily for the unsuccessful Soryu submarine sale in 2016," he said. "There's a lot of support across key constituencies of the Australian defense ecosystem for the Mogami, too."