Joint Workshop with China Eximbank on Foreign Economic Cooperation- Further enhancing collaboration between development agencies

JICA (President Sadako Ogata) and the Export-Import Bank of China (the China Eximbank) held a two-day joint workshop in Beijing on 1^stand 2^ndMarch to discuss the foreign economic cooperation operations. 

The workshop provided a meaningful venue for both institutions to have a wide range of discussions including: sharing current directions of operations and strategies and introducing each other activities in the priority areas such as assistance for Africa, countermeasures against climate change.  They also exchanged views on how they could utilise the World Bank-initiated “Infrastructure Recovery and Assets (INFRA) Platform” *, which JICA has actively supported.  

The China Eximbank was established by the Chinese government as a governmental financial institution in 1994.  In addition to financial support for promoting the import/export and foreign investment by Chinese companies, the China Eximbank implements low-interest long-term concessional lending to foreign countries as a part of foreign economic cooperation by the Chinese government.  China is, along with its own remarkable growth, rapidly strengthening its role as a provider of foreign economic cooperation to other countries.  In light of this, in order to deepen understanding of both institutions’ operations and further partnership between them, the China Eximbank and JICA have held joint workshops twice since March 2008 to discuss and share operational information and knowledge regarding project appraisal and monitoring, ex-post evaluation, risk management etc.  The workshop this time was held as a part of these efforts. 

In the Asian region, there is a growing tendency for countries such as China, as well as South Korea, Thailand and Malaysia to actively assist other developing countries.  JICA is proactively establishing and deepening partnership with the economic development agencies of these countries.