Japan, Botswana celebrate 50 years of diplomatic relations

The Embassy of Japan will tonight host a reception to celebrate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and Botswana. The event will be held at Boipuso Hall at Fairgrounds in Gaborone.

Japan’s Ambassador to Botswana H.E. Masahiro Onishi who will be accompanied by his wife, Mrs Sae Onishi will use his speech to outline the historical perspective of the cordial diplomatic relations that began with the country’s independence in 1966 and have endured to present. Japan’s overseas development assistance (ODA) has contributed immensely not only to Botswana’s development agenda, but also to the rest of Africa through cooperative frameworks such as the Tokyo International Conference on African Development.

Besides this, Japan continues to support Botswana’s development through training programmes for its public service workers; student exchange programmes and scholarships and internships at some of Japan’s high-end universities. Botswana benefits from Japan’s technological know-how in the areas of power generation; television broadcasting; minerals exploration using digital technologies and in the development of one stop border posts that are intended to promote and facilitate regional trade.

Ambassador Onishi is working around the clock by his own admission to lure Japanese private companies and investors to come and setup shop in Botswana, a country that boasts an uninterrupted period of peace, stability and rule of law since independence, conditions necessary for the promotion of inward investment. He is worried that not so many Japanese companies have set shop here.

Known Japanese brands that immediately spring to mind include Komatsu Botswana, Dimension Data; Toyota and Yamaha (although based in South Africa); Plascon (paint) and JOGMEG which deals in digital minerals surveillance. Marubbini is also marking its presence at the Morupule coal-fired power station.

The reception and buffet dinner will be spiced by entertainment from Japanese Taiko Drummers, who incidentally will also offer a fully-fledged performance the next day (Thursday) at Westwood International School’s Mantlwaneng Theatre where they’ll be joined by Joji Hirota from 6PM. On the same day, Ambassador Onishi will officially open the 2016 National Agriculture Show whose theme is “Practicing smart agriculture to combat the effects of climate change” at 11:00am at the National Show Ground, near the airport.