Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will start an official four-day visit to Japan on August 31 to meet with Emperor Akihito and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the Japanese Foreign Ministry announced on Friday. In a summit meeting in New Delhi late January, Abe and then Indian premier Manmohan Singh stressed their commitment to ensuring the freedom of navigation amid increasing China's maritime activities in the East and South China Seas, and agreed to hold a trilateral naval drill with the US. Abe also announced USD 2 billion loans to India mainly to help finance a project to expand the subway system in New Delhi.