Her Excellency Ms Zanele kaMagwaza-Msibi, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology of the Republic of South Africa, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen.
Welcome to my house for this occasion to celebrate the 10th anniversary of science and technology cooperation between Japan and South Africa.
Today, I am very glad that Deputy Minister kaMagwaza-Msibi has been able to come to my house in order to celebrate the 10 years of cooperation between Japan and South Africa in Science and Technology, despite the fact that it has been less than two month since she assumed the current portfolio.
Bilateral cooperation in science and technology between Japan and South Africa has been growing steadily, particularly since the two countries concluded the Agreement on Science and Technology Cooperation in August 2003.
Under the umbrella of this agreement, fifty joint research projects have taken place among Japanese and South African government research institutions and academic institutions.
Ongoing projects include observation studies in South African Mines to Mitigate Seismic Risks implemented by the University of Tokyo and other Japanese institutions on the Japanese side, as well as by CSIR and Council for Geo-science on the South African side.
Also on going is the establishment of the Early Warning System for Infectious Diseases in Southern Africa incorporating Climate site2016 Predictions implemented by Nagasaki University on the Japanese side and ACCESS, MRC and the University of Cape Town on the South African side.
These two projects have been implemented under the Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development or SATRREPS and funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency or JICA, the Japanese Government Agency for development cooperation.
Currently eight joint research projects are ongoing under the Agreement on Science and Technology Cooperation between the two countries, including the two which I mentioned earlier.
Cooperation between the two countries in the science and technology area has been periodically reviewed at the Science and Technology Joint Committee Meetings. The last of such meetings or the Forth Science and Technology Joint Committee Meeting was held in Tokyo in October 2012. It is hoped that the Fifth Meeting will take place in South Africa in the not so distant future.
In addition to or on a parallel with the above-mentioned joint research projects, close to twenty Japanese universities have cooperative frameworks with South African universities and research institutions, including Nagaoka University of Technology which signed an MOU with the Tshwane University of Technology in August 2013.
Japanese businesses have also been playing a positive role particularly in technology transfer in South Africa. Under the DST-Hitachi Scholarship Programme, more than 13 South African engineers have been sent to Japan for technical training since 2009.
Given the high level activities in the science and technology field in both counties, there will be a number of areas for the two countries to cooperate further. In this connection I wish to mention one of the programmes which Japan has been implementing as follow up to the Fifth Tokyo International Conference on African Development or TICADV, which was held in Yokohama in June 2013 with the participation of close to forty heads of State/Government of African countries including President Jacob Zuma.
In the next five years, Japan is inviting 1,000 African young people for two years to do masters degree courses at Japanese universities in combination with an internship at Japanese businesses. This programme is called the African Business Empowerment or ABE Initiative. Abe is the name of the current Japanese prime minister, of course. This programme will greatly contribute to the human resources development in African countries, and I appeal for many South African young people’s participation in this programme.
In concluding, I wish to take this opportunity to thank Deputy Minister kaMagwaza-Msibi and her colleagues at DST, as well as academics and researchers in South Africa for their contribution to the promotion of science and technology cooperation between the two countries so far. I also wish for the further strengthening of cooperation between the two countries in the area of science and technology.
Thank you for your attention.
