Japan spearheads Asia-Africa trade

Over 350 government and business leaders from Asia and Africa will meet in Tokyo on Monday and Tuesday to push for more trade and investment between the two continents.

The two-day Asia-African Trade and Investment Conference, being organised as part of the decade-old Tokyo International Conference on African Development initiative, will begin with the opening addresses by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and Kenyan President Mwai Kibati.

India's participation at the conference is insignificant. No Indian company has sent its representative to take advantage of the growing business opportunities in Africa. The Indian government's participation is also poor, with only the Indian ambassador to Japan and a few of his embassy's officials expected to attend the conference.

Shinsuke Horiuchi, adviser to the Japanese minister of foreign affairs, told Business Standard that Africa, with its 800 million people, was a rich continent.

Africa needed to work on improving governance (better macro-economic policies etc.), its business environment, infrastructure, access to markets and its agriculture through diversification. But its potential for growth could not be underestimated, senior officials associated with the conference said.

For two days, the participants at the conference will assess the current trade and investment situation in Africa and suggest concrete measures to improve Africa's trade and investment cooperation with Asia. A side event featuring an exhibition of various African products and a series of investment-promotion seminars will also be held.

Many Japanese companies are taking part in the conference. These include well-known ones like Marubeni, Toshiba, Kobe Steel, NEC, Sumitomo, YKK, Komatsu, Mitsubishi and Itochu.

This has created an impression that it is the Japanese industry that is taking full advantage of an initiative launched by its government in 1993 in the wake of a decline in interest shown by European and American companies in Africa and its development.

The conference has identified increased private sector involvement in improving cooperation between Africa and Asia as a key goal. A World Bank official said the bank was keen on improving the investment climate in Africa and as much as 40 per cent of its total lending programme in that continent was routed to the infrastructure sector.

The conference is being held in the backdrop of Africa's falling share in world trade since 1989 from about 6 per cent of world exports in 1980 to 2 per cent in 2002, and from about 4.6 per cent of world imports to 2.1 per cent in the same period.