Pretoria - Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Fatima Hajaig will this weekend depart for Japan ahead of next week's Japan-South Africa Partnership Forum.
The deputy minister, together with Japan's Deputy Foreign Minister Seiko Hashimoto, will co-chair the forum within the context of South Africa's priority to strengthen North-South relations with a view to consolidating the African developmental agenda.
Taking take place on Monday and Tuesday, the two will discuss the status of bilateral political, economic and trade relations between the two countries and domestic developments in Japan and South Africa as well as the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) and the African Union (AU).
Other areas of interest include conflict areas in Africa and the Middle East, Japan's priorities and objectives for its tenure as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and the comprehensive reform of the global governance architecture including the United Nations and the Bretton Woods Institutions.
Mr Hajaig will return to South Africa on Friday.
According to the Department of Foreign Affairs, Japan's economic policy toward African development, is directed within the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) process which was first held in 1993.
TICAD has led to the implementation of projects aimed at increasing African human resource capacity, infrastructure development and investment.
In the context of the Gleneagles G8 Summit held in July 2005, former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi committed Japan to holding TICAD IV in 2008 in an effort at making TICAD the cornerstone of Africa-Japan relations.
Japan has long advocated the importance of ownership of the development process by Africa in partnership with the developed world.
At TICAD IV) convened by the Japanese Government in Yokohama in May 2008, the participants compiled the Yokohama Action Plan that lays out assistance measures to be implemented by countries or organisations in support of African development.
The action plan provides for assistance to African Governments under boosting economic growth, trade, investment and tourism, agriculture, infrastructure, community development, education, health and others.
Both countries have expressed a desire to see an increase in trilateral co-operation with third countries in the rest of Africa in an effort to extend and promote economic growth on the continent.
Japan is an important trading partner for South Africa, in 2005 Japan became and still remains South Africa's number one export partner, followed by the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany.
It is South Africa's fourth largest import partner after Germany, China, and the US.
South Africa imports technology-intensive goods from Japan and exports base metals. In recent years, this has changed to more value-added goods such as motor vehicles.
Since 1994, there have been over 42 major investments in South Africa by Japanese companies, amounting to more than US$ 1 billion.
