Message from Ambassador

Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai has been opened, with its main theme “Designing Future Society for Our Lives.” 158 countries, including Kenya, take part in it. I hope that, during the half year till its closing in October, the exhibitions at pavilions and the events will further promote both Japan’s understanding of Kenya and the exchange between Japan and Kenya. In particular, on the dates around 24^th June, which is the national day of Kenya for the Expo, we will have many events that will drive our mutual understanding and exchanges forward.  We need to pay attention to them.
 
If you see the Expo’s sub themes in detail, you will find that the Expo’s ways to look at human lives are extremely various and very closely attached to the different reality of human lives, for example, how to extend human lives through medicine, how to learn unknown aspects of human lives through science, how to connect human lives through people-to-people exchange, how to enrich human lives through culture, how to increase the value of human lives through worthwhile activities, and so on.  It is too simple and wrong to judge that Expo 1970 Osaka looked the future of mankind only through the lens of affluence and convenience to be brought by technology. Nevertheless, by comparing the two events through the filter of the period as long as 55 years, I feel that the way Japan treats the mankind has acquired certain maturity.
 
Kenya also faces the variety, complexity and difficulty of the human lives that are sometimes different from those of Japan.  And Kenyans cheerfully confront them and overcome them. I hope that as many as possible Kenyans will visit the Expo so that the Expo can offer to Kenya hints to overcome Kenya’s challenges better, and that Japan can learn from Kenya’s challenges.
 
Although the Expo’s themes are extensive, I have particular hope that Japan and Kenya will learn from each other concerning technology and industry at the Expo.  More than 120 Japanese companies are in operation in Kenya and many other companies are planning to do so.  They commonly wish to grow in Africa being helped by the growing demand in Africa, where allegedly 40% of the global population will reside in 2050. It will be too late to start operation in 2050. Now is the time to enter the African market, and Kenya is the point to enter it.  Kenya is their preferred entry point, because it is an English-speaking country, is easy to be connected with Japan through the Indian Ocean, is a country with highly educated workforce, welcomes foreign country with generosity, and is politically stable. The relatively low wage, which is not limited to Kenya, is additional traction in comparison with Asia.  For Kenya, it is more than welcome to achieve its economic growth with the help of the Japanese capital, technology and innovative ideas.  Possibility of joint growth and joint prosperity is widely open.
 
Then, will the operation in Kenya promise instant expansion of the sales in Africa?  The reality is a bit harder than that. The scarcity of the formal sectors’ employment, particularly in the manufacturing sector, despite the high education of the workforce, and the stagnating productivity in agriculture are major reasons for which the economic growth has not been translated into outgrowth of the middle class.  As the outgrowth of the middle is the critical key for the increase in the disposable income and desire to purchase, the two intertwined sources of the exponential growth in demand, the lack of it is frustrating. Further, although an economic community has been established together with the other members of the East Africa Community, such as Uganda and Tanzania, a large and efficient single economy that connects members’ markets seamlessly has not yet been achieved.  In reality, limited number of goods move freely in the single market, hampered by various restrictions imposed by members with the consideration of foreign policies and protection of domestic industries.  The true growth in demand will take place as a consequence of patient process of removing these obstacles step by step.
 
By reflecting this way, we renew our recognition that, in Kenya, development of infrastructure that will lead to increase in employment in the industrial sectors, including the manufacturing sector, undertakings to increase the agricultural productivity, and increasing efficiency in the market connection with the neighboring countries are the three major challenges that Japan and Kenya should join forces to make progress in.  The two countries have been engaged in them, but we should double down our efforts.  What should be the exact ways of doing it?  This is a most appropriate question to discuss and to give specific answers to during the half-year period of Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai.  I encourage all of you to take part actively in this discussion.