Interviewer: Mr President, 15 years of TICAD now, in your assessment or your view, Africa, are we seeing any sort of concrete deliverables so to speak coming out of this process of TICAD?

President Mbeki: Well, I think the first thing to note of course Miranda is that an important part of TICAD is Japan, and you are dealing here with the second biggest economy in the world and precisely because the challenges that face the African continent centre on issues of defeat, of poverty and underdevelopment. Africa has to pay attention to Japan.

I think that the Programme of Action (POA) that has been agreed at Ministerial level, which will get formally adopted at the end of the Summit, in fact covers all the major issues of concern to the African continent, whether you are talking issues of infrastructure, or agricultural development, or education, or health, issues of international trade, these issues that are very problematic at the World Trade Organisation ( WTO), it covers all of those things, and I think its an important POA, I''m saying, given that you are dealing here with the second largest economy in the world, the decisions that have been arrived at as provided for in that POA, are very important and very relevant to what the African continent is trying to do for instance through NEPAD.

The second important point, you are quite right, the TICAD Process is 15 years old. But, for the first time there has been an agreement to put in place a monitoring mechanism , jointly Japan and the African Union, NEPAD in particular, to look at what actually practically is being done to implement these agreements, I think that ''s a very important step forward so that you do not end up with good decisions but with no follow - up mechanism, but also you know that in a few weeks time, Japan will be hosting G8, and Japan has undertaken that it will take the outcomes of this meeting TICAD 4 to the G8, in order also to push the rest of the G8, to act in a practical manner. And I was very glad indeed when Prime Minister Fukuda opened TICAD 4, because he not only confirmed Japan''s commitment to these development challenges that face the continent , but actually announced specific sums of money that will be devoted to this thing, whether you are talking infrastructure development, or agriculture, human resource development and so on, so the commitments that Japan has made are backed up with practical concrete resources, I think TICAD 4 has gone very well.

Interviewer: Mr President, you mention also the question of International Trade, if we just come to the TICAD issues, several Heads of State did mention that for example Japan''s trade relations with Africa were still quite not what we want in Africa or desirable; have they understood that it''s trade rather than aid where there must be more emphasis?

President Mbeki: The point that has been made quite correctly is that, we've got to increase the productive capacity of the African continent, we've got to have the factories and all these things that are needed to produce the goods that we can then export to Japan, I think in that context the Prime Minister of Japan also made an important announcement that they will be putting together a major delegation of Japanese investors to come to the African continent to precisely raise the levels of awareness of these Japanese investors, about the investment possibilities that exist on the African continent, he announced that decision also, he wasn't raising a possibility, but because they understand that Africa has got to export more into the Japanese market, but because Africa needs to produce the goods that you can export into the Japanese market, it is important to attend to the matter of the productive capacity on the African continent hence this major joint delegation, of Japanese investors and the Japanese government that will come to the continent precisely to identify these investment possibilities issues, so that we do indeed as the African continent, produce the goods that will export to Japan.

Question: President also touched on the question of the G8 - Well, we remember of course NEPAD started in Japan 8 yrs ago - It has reached Full cycle now, wanting to push more, what can we really expect from the G8, given Japan''s position?

President Mbeki: I think we have got to insist still, that given all of the commitments that have been made over the years, by the G8 encapsulated in the G8 Africa Action Plan ,that the other G8 members, have got to respond in the manner that Japan has indicated, to say, well here is this whole variety of decisions that we took regarding NEPAD and there are many, and good decisions.

The question is the follow - up on the practical measures, that will then be taken, to ensure that these decisions are implemented, I think that , that is what is important about what the Japanese Prime announced, to what Japan itself will do, in that it serves as an example and a challenge to the other G8 we agreed on infrastructure, what resources are being put into that, we agreed on agricultural development, what resources are being put in that with regards to agriculture matter, I have just mentioned, I should mention that fortunately the meeting also paid attention to the matter of high food prices, what should be done with regards to that, and again not only Japan, but also other organizations that were here like the World Bank, like the International Fund for Agricultural Development, Food and Agricultural Organization, ( FAO) all of them committed themselves to providing additional funds to respond to the matter of increasing agricultural production as well as short - term measures to deal with the issue of the high food prices, which are impacting very negatively particularly on poor people, we need to encourage the other G8 to follow this example, so that indeed we don't need any new NEPAD Programmes, what we need is practical action on the part of G8 to respond to the commitments they have made.

Interviewer: President has had a number of Bilateral meetings on the margins of the TICAD 4 Summit, I am particularly interested in the Bilateral meeting with the International Organisation of Migration, what was the nature of the organization; did it have anything to do with what is happening in South Africa?

President Mbeki: Yes, it did. The IOM were saying that they have an office in SA, they have a presence and wanted to confirm that they are very ready to assist us in all ways that they can, because we have these displaced people, who need to be housed temporarily, who need to be re-integrated into their communities, some of them want to go back to their homes, that the IOM is quite ready to help with all those matters, so we have undertaken to contact their people immediately when we return home, so that they can be integrated into this government programme very willingly, They are a migration organisation, with lots of experience and are quite ready to lend their full weight to what the South African government will do to respond to this challenge.

Interviewer: And the Meeting with SADC? (On the margins of TICAD 4, the SADC Heads of State at TICAD met in Yokohama, Tokyo)

President Mbeki: Well, the SADC meeting really was to get an update on the situation in Zimbabwe, but most specifically to check on practical measures that need to be taken. In particular we confirmed a decision that had been taken earlier, that the SADC observers must go back to Zimbabwe quickly, in preparation for the run-off election on the 27th of June, and that we will increase the numbers of those observers, so they can cover all parts of Zimbabwe, and that they need to go in as early as is possible, this was the principal thing, and of course that all of the countries ( SADC countries) that were there committed themselves to that which means also providing the resources for those observers to be able to go to Zimbabwe and operate.

Interviewer: The Team that went to investigate the violence there (Zimbabwe) has it come back with any information for the President at all?

President Mbeki: The Team has been keeping us briefed. We sent that team not to investigate, we sent that team to stop the violence, so what they did when they got to Zimbabwe, they met a whole range of organizations, political parties, civil society, the churches and so on, to get as comprehensive and as specific a report as is possible, which they did, as they have been going from area to area visiting all these areas where there was incidents of violence, with a view, as I was saying, to intervene to stop that violence, that's what they are doing.

Interviewer: Just lastly, Mr. President, there has been a lot of criticism leveled at the President for not having gone into the areas where all these xenophobic attacks have been taking place? How do you respond to all of these given what has been said in the papers?

President Mbeki: What people must understand is that there is a Government of the Republic of South Africa and we discussed all of these things, all elements of this problem and indeed have taken various decisions at different points about people visiting the areas, and a whole range of other decisions also that had to do first of all, with the deployment of the police, later with the use of the National Defence Force, matters of the resettlement of the people that had been displaced, there is a whole range of matters .The Deputy President of the Republic, Phumzile Mlambo - Ngcuka was at Orange Farm over the weekend as a preventive intervention, because of reports that we were getting that there was a possibility of an eruption, it was necessary to go there to talk to the people to make sure that it does not happen, fortunately, it has not happened.

The Government of South Africa will respond to these matters using all of the people and all of the resources at its command. I think that''s how one should respond to that.

Thank you very much.

This is the transcript of President Thabo Mbeki's SABC interview at the TICAD 4 Summit, Yokohama, Japan, May 29 2008. Issued by The Presidency, South Africa