On the morning of August 30, 2019, Keiichi Furukawa, executive officer of Fukunaga Engineering, and Habtom Welday, an intern at the same company, were at Pacifico Yokohama, officially known as Pacific Convention Plaza Yokohama, one of the largest convention and exhibition centres in Yokohama, Japan.

The two young men represent a company with headquarters in Osaka, Japan that works on recycling tyres and metal materials and has a plant in Vietnam.

Recently, Fukunaga Engineering, established in 1994 with 282,232 dollars in capital and now sporting revenue of 7.7 million dollars in just the last six months, began eyeing Ethiopia as an investment destination.

The company, which is also engaged in producing and selling flexible containers and puncture-proof tyres, has been conducting a feasibility study for the establishment of a tyre recycling plant in Ethiopia over the past year.

It also sent a team of experts to explore potential business opportunities in Ethiopia and found out that there are only a few companies that thread and recycle used tyres.

Habtom, who studied for his master’s degree in Japan under Abe Initiative, a programme that offers opportunities for young Africans to gain second degrees in Japanese universities and to experience internships at Japanese enterprises, is helping the company in realising this investment.

The programme Habtom attended was launched in 2013 during the fifth edition of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD 5). The plan was kicked off after Japan recognised that there is a need for human resource development in both the private and public sectors of Africa to cultivate a strong social network between Japan and Africa.

Since it was launched, the programme has enrolled a total of 2,700 young Africans including Habtom, who got the scholarship after passing a rigorous screening process that took almost a year.

After he graduated last June, he joined Fukunaga Engineering as an intern for six months, helping the company through its planned investment project in Ethiopia.

Last week, he and his boss were invited by The Ministry of Environment of Japan to make a presentation on the African Clean Cities Platform (ACCP), a platform to promote the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on waste management in Africa. They were invited to present their project proposal for the planned tyre recycling plant in Ethiopia.

Their presentation took place at one of the sessions held a day before the opening of the three-day TICAD 7 Summit, which Japan launched to strengthen its presence in Africa. The summit was opened under the theme of “Advancing Africa's Development through People, Technology and Innovation.”

Led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD), the Ethiopian delegation that was accompanied by Gedu Andargachew, minister of Foreign Affairs, Seleshi Bekele (PhD), minister of Irrigation & Electricity, Getahun Mekuria (PhD), minister of Innovation & Technology, and Ahmed Hamza (B. Gen), director-general of Metals & Engineering Corporation (MetEC), attended the summit held in the Japanese port city of Yokohama.

Inaugurated in 1993, TICAD was held every five years until its fifth session took place in 2013 in Yokohama. Since then, it has been held every three years, with its first session being held in Africa three years ago in Nairobi, Kenya.

Japan has been hosting the summit in collaboration with the United Nations, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), World Bank and African Union (AU) with the aspiration to strengthen its strategic position in Africa, in competition mainly with China but also India.

The two countries also follow the same approach and have their own editions of forums to lure Africans. China hosts a conference on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), while India has a platform dubbed the India-Africa Forum Summit.

Though the Japanese government targets to penetrate African countries, the trade level the country has with the member countries is far lower than the two competitors.

China, for instance, annually does more than 200 billion dollars in trade with Africa, and Indian trade has reached 60 billion dollars with the continent. Compare this to Japan's 10 billion dollars. Although a far cry, Japan's trade with Africa increased last year by nine percent, the highest recorded for a decade.

After making the presentation, Habtom and Furukawa decided to take part in the three-day summit. There they announced the company’s plan to open a tyre recycling plant in Ethiopia to make car speed bumps from the recycled waste.

For the implementation of the project, their company considered having an Ethiopian partner that can work on securing land for the project and electric supply.

Thus, Habtom and Keiichi joined the summit aiming to search for an investment partner and potential buyers of their products.

On the last day of the summit, which heads of states and ministers from 42 countries participated in and which saw 10,000 attendants, a record high, the Ethio-Japanese Business Seminar was held.

Hosted jointly by the Ethiopian Embassy in Japan and Wafa Marketing & Promotion, the Seminar had about 193 Japanese companies that have interests and 42 Ethiopian companies as participants.