Transport ministers from the Group of Seven advanced economies agreed Sunday to strengthen cooperation in the railway and airline sectors as they wrapped up their three-day meeting in the resort town of Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture. Prior to the conclusion of the gathering, ministers from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States plus the European Union adopted a declaration Saturday pledging to reinforce international cooperation in creating safety regulations to promote self-driving cars. The conference was the last of the ministerial meetings related to May's G-7 leaders' Ise-Shima summit in Mie Prefecture. "We will cooperate with each other and exercise leadership to support the early commercialization of automated and connected vehicle technologies," the declaration adopted at the Saturday meeting said. "We obtained a common understanding to make efforts in the same direction to create regulation frameworks that (will) tend to vary depending on region," transport minister Keiichi Ishii told a news conference after the meeting.