ADDRESS BY SENIOR VICE-MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS TETSURO YANO

Tokyo International Conference on Investment to Africa

February 26, 2003

1. Today, it is a great honor and pleasure for me, to address this distinguished gathering of experts on investment, as well as leading members of the business community. I am deeply grateful to this opportunity. I also extend a warm welcome to the participants from Africa, and other distant regions, who have taken the precious time from their busy schedules to travel to Tokyo for this meeting. I am delighted to see you all here for the Tokyo International Conference on Investment to Africa, and wish to say a few words on this occasion.
2. Time certainly flies, with this year marking the passage of 10 years since the first convening of the First Tokyo International Conference on African Development, or TICAD-I. I am proud to say that TICAD has done much to draw the world's attention to African development. Over the past decade, in fact, we have seen major changes in how the global community views Africa. One example was the Kyushu-Okinawa G8 Summit in 2000, for which Japan served as the chair country. On that occasion, the leaders of G8 and of developing countries, including African states, had rich exchanges of views. Then two years ago, former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori became Japan's first Prime Minister to visit Africa while in office. Just last year, at the World Summit for Sustainable Development which Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi participated in, and various other international conferences, the issue of African development was addressed as a crucial theme. At the end of this September, TICAD-III is scheduled to be held here in Tokyo.
   
   Against this backdrop, we felt that the timing was right for discussions on promoting investment as an important approach in contributing to African development. This led to the decision to hold today's conference. We welcome eminent participants from various African nations, who will introduce the approaches to attract investment to those countries.
3. For Africa to achieve lasting economic development, it is vital to work through trade and investment to strengthen the continent's ties with the dynamic global economy. Japan has devoted considerable effort in this regard, promoting trade and investment activities, and giving effective assistance to help Africa cultivate its own capacity.
   

   (1) As for development assistance, based on the view that economic growth is vital to reduce poverty, Japan has carried out positive assistance in infrastructure improvements, human resource development, support for policy formulation and on other fronts. As for ODA to Africa in 2000, Japan ranked third in the world after the United States and France. Human resource development is a field that Japan views with especially keen importance. Likewise, in the area of education, health and water supply, major premises for economic activity, Japan announced plans to furnish 90 billion yen in grants over the five-year period from 1998. We now project that this goal will be achieved in fiscal year 2003. Japan has also decided to carry out economic relief to heavily indebted poor countries, to total 4.8 billion US dollars. This is the largest amount among the G8 nations, and Japan makes an important contribution to assisting those countries.
   In addition to such assistance, it is also critical not to leave Africa behind in the midst of the advance of globalization. Greater efforts are necessary through trade and investment, to truly integrate African economic activity into the global economy.

   (2) As for trade, from upcoming April, the Japanese government is expanding the coverage of duty-free and quota-free treatment for the least developed countries' (the LDCs') products, while expanding the coverage of the Generalized System of Preference (GSP) for developing countries as a whole. I wish to call your attention to the fact that the coverage of duty-free and quota-free treatment for industrial products is already 99%, on import value basis, and that of agricultural products is 97%, and this expansion is bringing the coverage for overall products to 93%. Furthermore, Japan's rules of origin are highly transparent, and provide a system under which it is easy to take advantage of preferential measures. In this way, Japan will continue to stress the importance of its trade relations with the countries of Africa and other developing nations.
   At the same time, however, there is also a need to improve upon the current approaches. For example, it is no longer sufficient to rely only on such trade border measures. Over the years to come, it will be important to retool the trade structure characterized by excessive dependence on specific primary products, broadening efforts to strengthen the production capacity of Africa.

   (3) As for investment, Japan is engaged in development assistance to facilitate and promote investment, supply of investment financing, dispatch of investment missions and other programs. For myself, I have made a number of visits to Africa in the past. I will be traveling to several African countries next month, and am looking forward to observing the latest progress and development in Africa. Today, we are pleased to have with us Mr. Satoru Anzaki, Chairman of Committee on Sub-Saharan Africa of the Japan Business Federation, or Nippon Keidanren, and other representatives of Japanese companies directly involved in African investment projects. To promote truly fruitful investment in Africa, it will be vital to carry on these efforts with the greatest patience and devotion.

4. Over the years to come, it will be more important to move forward from the perspective of how Asia, as a whole, can fortify its economic ties with Africa.
   

   (1) Within the "Tokyo Agenda for Action", a vision adopted at TICAD-II, Asia-Africa cooperation was one of the key focuses. We have also seen impressive progress made at the "Asia-Africa Forum," the "Africa-Asia Business Forum" and other events. At this "Business Forum," which has been held twice in the past, about 130 investment projects, worth around 100 million US dollars, have been agreed.

   (2) During the fiscal year of 2001, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) hosted about 1,100 technical trainees from Africa. In addition, the third-nation training scheme has been used to host about 500 additional African trainees in Asian countries.

   (3) In 1999, the Asia-Africa Investment and Technology Promotion Center, more commonly known as the "Hippalos Center," was established in Kuala Lumpur. Japan supported the launch of this Center, working through the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) to get that facility off the ground. Today, we are proud to have with us Senior Investment and Technology Advisor to the Hippalos Center and I hope he will share with us an interesting story on the Center's activities over the past four years.

5. In addition to the efforts I have mentioned so far, the last decade has witnessed many other developments and progress as well.
   

   (1) Steps forward include the advance of democracy, stability, and regional cooperation in the African countries. We highly appreciate African countries' strong emphasis on improvements in governance. Mutual efforts to lower the economic barriers among the African countries are also extremely vital in the quest for progressive regional economic development. As a case in point, Japan is cooperating with the Southern African Development Community (SADC) through both financial assistance and the dispatch of experts. We also expect that the progress of the New Partnership for Africa's Development, or NEPAD, will have a positive impact on the development of the African economy. From this perspective, Japan has decided to donate 100,000 Euros to OECD with the aim of supporting NEPAD, including the necessary arrangements for OECD's active cooperation in NEPAD's African Pier Review program. Meanwhile, in addition to consolidation of peace, human resource development and other "nation building," the Japanese government also wishes to strengthen its support for building "regional cooperation."

   (2) Following the collapse of the "bubble economy," Japan has carried out structural reform and other policies aimed at revitalizing its economy. Japanese companies are also active on this front, restructuring their overseas deployment. The wave of globalization continues to expand, and competition becomes increasingly intense on the world marketplace. In the midst of such dynamic change, we hope that today's conference will help Japanese companies find the comparative advantage of Africa on many different fronts and better define how Africa should be positioned in the scope of their overseas deployment.

   (3) We also understand that many international agencies are conducting analysis on foreign direct investment and development, and proposing policies in that direction. Today, we have with us experts from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Bank, and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). We are looking forward to having their presentations on their activities, which will certainly be of great interest and reference to us all.
   
   As I have noted, we would like to provide this Conference as a forum for free and candid discussions of the current status, problems, improvement measures and other aspects of investment in Africa, from a truly broad perspective. The Japanese government is working to better coordinate its assistance, trade, investment and other policies, and we hope to use the outcome of this Conference for enhancing policy integrity. Naturally, we are also determined to apply the wisdom emerging from this gathering at the Evian G8 Summit Meeting scheduled for this June in France, and at TICAD-III in Tokyo at the end of September. The goal, in each and every case, is to better contribute to the development of the African economy, and to the prosperity of the citizens of all African nations.
   
   Thank you for your kind attention.