Ghana stepping up relations with Japan to attract railway, technology investments

A Japanese lawmaker, Manabu Sakai, has pledged to use his influence in his country to broker a deal that will bring direct Japanese investment into Ghana’s emerging railway sector. The Japanese government, he said, is eager to invest in infrastructure development in Ghana. Consequently, he has assured Ghana of using his great deal of influence on the Joint Venture Japan Railways Organization to bring some investments in Ghana. Mr. Sakai has a great influence in the Diet of Japan, which composes of a lower house, the House of Representatives, an upper house, and the House of Councilors He made the commitment when he paid a courtesy call on the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, at her hotel in Tokyo, Japan. The minister is attending the 2018 Ministerial Meeting ahead of next year’s Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD 7) slated for August 2019  in Yokohama, Japan.As part of the discussions Mr. Sakai, disclosed that President Nana Akufo-Addo has accepted to pay a state visit to Japan at the invitation of the Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzō Abe, from the December 11 and 13, 2018. He said he is looking forward to the visit, which he believes, will greatly strengthen Ghana’s bilateral relations with the highly advanced state of Japan. Mrs. Ayorkor Botchwey welcomed the commitment by the member of the Japanese Parliament towards Ghana and assured him she will through Ghana’s ambassador to Japan, follow up to ensure that issues discussed materialize into concrete and measurable projects. Need to step up Ghana-Japan relations In a related development, Mrs Botchwey has said Ghana is stepping up its relations with Japan to attract technology and industry giants in Asia. That, she explained, will drive government’s agenda of moving Ghana from a raw material production economy into an industrialized and technologically driven one. The Minister said this when she held closed door bilateral talks Foreign Minister of Japan, Taro Kono. In an interview after the meeting, Mrs. Botchwey said Japan can serve as a key partner to Ghana in the industrialization drive. “I believe that if we want to leapfrog in having very sophisticated technology, we need to be learning from best practices like Japan. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel; they have already done it and we just need to copy from them” she said. Her Japanese counterpart, she noted, has agreed to link Ghana up with the Japan Monorail companies to assist the country in developing a monorail system of transportation in Ghana as exist in several cities in Japan. The initial target will be to have such metro rails in Accra and subsequently to other regions of Ghana. By Natalie Fort|TV3|editors.3news.com|Ghana