The government should encourage Japan's private sector to invest more money and at a faster pace in Africa despite the security concerns that have plagued the continent, Ethiopian Ambassador Markos Tekle Rike said ahead of the fifth Tokyo International Conference on African Development, which kicks off Saturday.
Rike said sporadic conflicts in Africa do not mean the entire continent is unsafe to invest in.
"It's not feasible to put the vast Africa in one box, as what's happening in Mali isn't happening in Ethiopia," Rike told The Japan Times during a recent interview, referring to the Islamic militia insurgency in the northern part of the continent. "You can't say you cannot go to Japan because North Korea has problems," said Rike, whose home country chairs the African Union this year.