Japan pledges to mobilise some $30 billion for Africa
Tunis, Tunisia (PANA) - Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced on Saturday that the public and private sectors in his country will work to mobilise approximately $30 billion in financing for the African continent over the next three years, in particular through incentives for the green economy.
Speaking via video conference at the opening of the two-day 8th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) in Tunis, he recalled that the promise of private sector financing in Africa, estimated at 20 billion yen, which was announced at TICAD 7, has been almost honored over the past three years.
"An envelope of the order of $4 billion will be mobilised to support investment in the public and private sectors, within the framework of the Initiative for Green Growth in Africa", he noted.
Mr. Kishida added that Japan and the African Development Bank (AfDB) would make available to African and Japanese start-ups a credit line worth $5 billion, in order to boost investment and private initiative.
According to him, this envelope will include the exceptional quota of $1 billion that Japan will allocate to support countries undertaking reform programmes intended to ensure the proper management of loans.
The Prime Minister also said that Japan, convinced of the imperative to help support programmes to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria and to strengthen health systems, particularly in Africa, will offer $1.8 billion over the next three years.
He also expressed his country's readiness to present training cycles for the benefit of 300,000 people by the year 2025, as part of the contribution to the development of human resources in Africa, noting that Japan has so far trained about 4,000 young Africans.
-0- PANA BB/JSG/MA 27Aug2022
