Africa

On August 28, for about 15 minutes, from 6:40 p.m., Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had a summit meeting with H.E. Mr. Moussa Faki Mahamat，Chairperson of the African Union Commission, in Yokohama, Japan. The overview of the meeting is as follows. Chairperson Moussa Faki is visiting Japan to participate in the Seventh Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD7) held from August 28 to 30.

1. At the outset, Prime Minister Abe stated, “By cooperating with Chairperson Moussa Faki, I would like to make the seventh TICAD successful and further strengthen ties between Japan and the African Union Commission.” In response, Chairperson Moussa Faki stated, “I would like to express my appreciation of Japan’s cooperation with the TICAD process”. He also expressed his expectation to further promote the cooperation between Japan and the African Union Commission in a more visible manner, and wished to advance cooperation in field of human resources development for youth and infrastructure development.
2. Following that, Prime Minister Abe highly evaluated the African Union Commission’s efforts for mediation for peace and stability in the Central Africa as well as Sudan and the AU’s activities in the economic field including the effectuation of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement. He also expressed intention to advance exchange of opinions and information on the African situations in which both parties are interested, as well as discussion on cooperation between Japan and the AU including cooperation in the international arena. In response, Chairperson Moussa Faki expressed his desire to expand investment from Japanese companies to Africa while explaining that the NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa’s Development) had been restructured to AUDA (African Union Development Agency).