The Japanese Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Tsutomu Himeno has encouraged Ghanaians to take advantage of Kaizen, a skill development and training programme to enhance productivity.
MrHimeno was speaking to the Ghanaian Times in an exclusive interview in Accra last week
Kaizen is a Japanese philosophy that means “continuous improvement” to enhance quality, productivity, safety and efficiency of enterprises while reducing waste.
Apart from skill training for more than 254 enterprises under the collaboration between the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the National Board for Small Scale Industries, the Japanese Ambassador told the Ghanaian Times that Kaizen also trained health personnel to improve quality service delivery.
Under the Kaizen programme, beneficiary companies, particularly medium and small scale enterprises were taught how to use friendly technology to accomplish difficult tasks.
Currently, the Japanese Ambassador noted that beneficiaries of Kiazenprogramme are able to use little time to produce more, thus saving cost and preventing waste.
MrHimeno said training was essential to ensuring a successful business but added that liking it to education was key to developing a prosperous economy.
The Japanese envoy said that he was optimistic about the future of Ghana and advised Ghanaian youth to venture into agriculture to help spur economic growth.
While noting that there was misconception about agriculture, said even in Japan, agriculture was not attractive to the youth ten years ago, but with the advancement in technology, agriculture had become a useful enterprise in his country.
Rather than travelling to seek greener pasture and non-existing jobs in the cities, MrHimeno advised the youth to explore to skill training programmes to earn a living.
When asked about areas Ghana and Japan were working under the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), the Japanese Ambassador said the two countries were working on health and food security for the benefit of the people.
He mentioned infrastructure, health, energy, industrialisation and skills development as other areas of partnership between the two countries.
In the area of health, he said the government of Japan provided funding to Covax, the global manufacturer of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines to produce and distribute vaccines to countries including Ghana.
On infrastructure development, MrHimeno said aside the Tema interchange project, the government of Japan would construct a new bridge at Volvo, near Adomi Bridge in the Eastern Region in 2022 under a loan facility.
BY MALIK SULLEMANA
