Japan's hard-charging prime minister on Friday said he wanted in on talks to forge a huge trade pact, the latest bold move from a man who says he is determined to lick the frail economy into shape. With caveats aimed squarely at reassuring the cosseted farming industry, Shinzo Abe said Japan could not afford to miss negotiations on thrashing out the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP).

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Friday that Japan wants to take part in talks aimed at forging a huge free trade agreement that could involve 40 percent of the world's economy. "I have decided to join negotiations for the TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership," Abe told a news conference. "The vast Pacific Ocean is becoming an inland sea for a huge economic bloc." "What the TPP is aiming to achieve is to make the Pacific Ocean a sea where goods, services and investment are freely exchanged.

Japan will announce its participation in talks to forge a US-backed free trade deal Friday, an official said, giving the pact much-needed economic clout, but possibly angering farmers at home. Supporters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) say it would give Japan's flagging economy a boost and increase consumer choice. But opponents claim it could be a body blow to the country's ageing farmers, possibly removing the sky-high tariffs that have sheltered them and sending many to the wall, changing the face of the countryside in the process.

TOKYO, Feb 28 (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose country is embroiled in a row with China over tiny islands, on Thursday quoted former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's reflections on the 1982 Falklands war with Argentina to stress the importance of the rule of law at sea. "Our national interests have been immutable. They lie in making the seas, which are the foundation of our nation's existence, completely open, free and peaceful," Abe said in a prepared policy speech to parliament covering a wide range of issues.