Japan To Challenge China in Africa with High Quality Development

It is no longer a secret that Africa is the next frontier market as hashtag Japan seeks to counter hashtag China in Africa with alternative ‘high-quality’ hashtag development.

The long rivalry between both Asian tigers is again playing out in Africa, with Tokyo planning to pour more aid into the continent and hashtag invest in hashtag infrastructure projects there. 

Beijing – which has for decades funneled money into the continent – will be watching as the leaders of 54 African countries and international organisations descend on Yokohama later this month for the seventh Tokyo International Conference on African Development (hashtag #TICAD).

Japan reportedly plans to pledge more than 300 billion yen (US$2.83 billion) in aid to Africa during the conference. While that might not be enough to alarm China – which in recent years has been on a spending spree in the continent – it will be paying close attention.

Japan seeks to counter China in Africa with ‘high-quality’ alternative [1]

According to Cxton Fatanmi, Japan is playing catch-up ! Under Mr Shinzo Abe, the Japanese PM, Japan ignored Africa for a while. Japan in the past through JICA, was very active in African development aids. Point is, African countries would do well to negotiate with anyone, be it China, 

Japan and soon India, on commercial terms and project-specific needs. We in Africa must not fall into the trap of building White Elephants and projects that have political value for the leader, but zero economic value on the long shot. These were the mistakes Sri Lanka made with China. Let 

Japan bring us technologies and knowledge-based infrastructure development aids. If we opt for the same old aids to build primary schools or boreholes then we are going nowhere