Japan Focuses on Business ties in Africa summit

{{Japan will this weekend welcome dozens of leaders from Africa as it looks to boost economic ties and wrestle resources and market share away from an increasingly assertive China.}}

The five-yearly Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), co-organised by Japan, the UN, the World Bank and the African Union, will bring together leaders from more than 40 African countries.

Japanese and African officials said the fifth TICAD forum, which was first held in 1993, will emphasise the need to boost trade and investment, in a bid to transform the relationship from an aid-led one to a business partnership.

Japan “recognises the need to strengthen ties with African countries” against the backdrop of growing interest from rivals such as China and South Korea, said Japanese trade ministry official Yasunori Nakayama.

“The growth of the middle-class in Africa… shows the importance of the continent as a business partner” providing new markets for Japan’s companies struggling with a contracting customer base at home, Nakayama said,

Despite relatively long-standing connections, Japan’s importance to Africa has slipped behind that of China, whose more aggressive approach has given it five times the trading volume and eight times the direct investment.

TICAD as a forum is not unique; the European Union, China, India, South Korea, and Turkey have similar ventures to court African leaders in the scramble for resources and market share.

But Japan feels the China effect keenly.

Japan’s ambassador to TICAD, Makoto Ito, told news agency AFP there was a vast difference in approach between how Tokyo went about investing in Africa and how Beijing did it.

“China is not tied” to the OECD Development Assistance Committee rules aimed at reducing poverty and improving human rights, he said.

“Japan’s development assistance has always had and will always have an emphasis on African ownership” of that development, he said.

The three-day conference, which begins on Saturday will see Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announcing development aid programmes, Ito said.

This will include a reaffirmation of an earlier pledge to double rice production in sub-Saharan Africa from 2007 levels to 28 million tonnes by 2018, and supply hand-me-down coastguard ships to countries surrounding Somalia as part of an international effort to tackle piracy, he said.

{NMG}