24 African Foreign Affairs Ministers meet in Maputo to discuss the continent’s challenges

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24 African Foreign Affairs Ministers meet in Maputo to discuss the continent’s challenges

11:22 CAT | 23 Aug 2017

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At least 24 African ministers of foreign affairs will be discussing the challenges facing the continent at the sixth ministerial meeting of the Tokyo International Conference for the Development of Africa in Maputo from today.

The three-day meeting will also consider the emergence of radicalism and extremism on the continent, analyse strategies to combat ebola and evaluate the implementation of previous meetings’ resolutions.

“For our country, this meeting has an important significance because it is a contribution to the consolidation of the partnership with Japan and a demonstration of what has been done in this bilateral cooperation,” Mozambique Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Oldemiro Baloi was quoted by the Mozambican press as saying.

Minister Baloi noted the importance of Japan as a new partner for many African countries, highlighting, in particular, gains in Mozambique’s relations with Japan.

Imports of Japanese goods and services totalled US$108 million in 2016, according to data from the Mozambican National Statistics Institute, while exports of Mozambican goods to Japan, which is Mozambique’s ninth-largest trading partner, amounted to about US$31 million, just after Portugal.

In 2016, the Brazilian company Vale sold a minority share of the Moatize coal mine and half of the Nacala Logistics Corridor enterprise to Japan’s Mitsui, and contacts in the natural gas area are also underway.

On another axis, the Japanese government has supported the construction and rehabilitation of bridges across the country as part of a program underwritten with a US$12 million donation to Mozambique a year ago.

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At the time, the then Japanese ambassador Akira Mizutani said that “despite the issue of undisclosed debt, Japan will continue to conduct non-reimbursable financial cooperation with Mozambique”.

The two countries signed a bilateral cooperation agreement in 2014 to rehabilitate the port of Nacala, build educational and research centres in Nampula and Maputo and build the current fish market in the capital.

The sixth ministerial meeting of the Tokyo International Conference for the Development of Africa will also be attended by seven ministers from other branches of the continent as well as 13 deputy ministers.

Also Read: TICAD Ministerial Meeting in Maputo to assess progress made since 2016 Nairobi Summit

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Source: Lusa