Kan tells AU Commission chief of Japan`s continuing aid for Africa+

TOKYO, Aug. 2 Kyodo -
Prime Minister Naoto Kan told visiting African Union Commission Chairman Jean
Ping on Monday that Japan will continue to support Africa by striving to
fulfill its promise made in 2008 to double its official development assistance
to African nations by 2012, Japanese officials said.
Kan also agreed with Ping that Japan and the executive body of the regional
organization consisting of 53 African nations will boost bilateral cooperation,
with the AU commission chief expressing hope of strengthening ties in the areas
of trade and investment, they said.
The two also agreed that Tokyo and the regional entity will closely cooperate
on such issues as reform of the U.N. Security Council and climate change.
Following his meeting with Kan, Ping held talks with Foreign Minister Katsuya
Okada and issued a joint statement regarding the reinforcement of the
cooperative relations between Japan and the African Union.
In the document, the two sides agreed to strengthen cooperation in such fields
as agriculture, development of region-wide infrastructure and human resources
as well as achievement of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals on poverty
reduction.
Japan expressed its intention to consider dispatching experts to help realize
the creation of the Pan-African University, a project driven by the African
Union to create a network of universities in the continent. The two sides also
agreed to hold high-level policy talks regularly.
Tokyo also welcomed the African Union as a new co-organizer of the Tokyo
International Conference on African Development, which has been held every five
years since 1993 and co-sponsored by Japan, the United Nations, the U.N.
Development Program and the World Bank.
Ping, a former Gabonese foreign minister, has been heading the African Union
Commission since April 2008. He last visited Japan in 2008 for TICAD conference
and the Group of Eight summit.
==Kyodo