Dinner Meeting hosted in honour of the Right Honourable Morgan Tsvangirai, Prime Minister of the Republic of Zimbabwe by Mr. Koichiro Gemba, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan

July 19, 2012
Japanese

On Thursday, July 19, commencing at around 7:15 p.m. for about 1 hour and 30 minutes, Minister for Foreign Affairs Koichiro Gemba hosted a dinner meeting at the State Guest House in Tokyo to welcome the Right Honourable Morgan Tsvangirai, Prime Minister of the Republic of Zimbabwe, who is currently on a working visit to Japan. The overview of the meeting is as follows.

Opening
Foreign Minister Gemba welcomed the visit to Japan by Prime Minister Tsvangirai, and stated that he valued the solidarity shown by Zimbabwe at the time of the Great East Japan Earthquake and would like to take the opportunity of this visit to bring vitality to relations between the two countries. Both agreed to continue cooperation aimed at the success of the Fifth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD V), which is scheduled to be held in Yokohama in June 2013.
Bilateral relations
Foreign Minister Gemba commented that Japanese companies were highly interested in Zimbabwe, and he mentioned that based on statement by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, Japan would move forward with preparations for a joint government and private sector mission that is scheduled to be dispatched to Zimbabwe in August this year. Prime Minister Tsvangirai responded that investment from foreign countries was essential for the development of Zimbabwe’s economy, and that he hoped that the mission would help promote investment in Zimbabwe by Japanese companies. Furthermore, Foreign Minister Gemba stated that Japan would begin preparations for the full-fledged resumption of economic cooperation in support of progress in democratization in Zimbabwe. Both exchanged views concerning improving the investment environment in Zimbabwe, including the application of the Indigenization Law in the country.
Other issues
Foreign Minister Gemba and Prime Minister Tsvangirai had a lively exchange of views on topics including cooperation between their two countries in the international arena, the process of democratization in Zimbabwe, and the future outlook regarding the economic situation in Zimbabwe.

[Reference] Zimbabwe Indigenization Law
This law obligates companies to have 51% or more of their corporate stock owned by citizens of Zimbabwe.

(*The foregoing is a provisional translation. The date indicated above denotes the date of issue of the original press release in Japanese.)

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