OBJECTIVE

The Asia-Africa Investment & Technology Promotion Centre has been established to promote business linkages in the form of investment, trade and technology transfer from Asia to Africa. Within the framework of South-South Cooperation, the Centre is helping business communities and institutional partners in both Asia and Africa to identify business opportunities and to create a mutually benefical win-win situation.

In the initial stage, seven target African nations have been identified for the programme.
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BACKGROUND

The first Tokyo International Conference on Africa Development (TICAD I) was held in 1993 to reaffirm Japan's commitment towards Africa's industrial development. The second conference (TICAD II) involving a large number of African and Asian countries as well as major donor countries and international and regional organizations that includes UNIDO had agreed to a joint declaration to foster increased South-South Cooperation.

As a result, Asia-Africa Investment & Technology Promotion Centre (AAITPC) was established in Kuala Lumpur in 1999. The project is implemented by United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), and it has been initiated and fully funded by the The Government of Japan.

How the centre got its name?

In the Indian Ocean, the monsoon blows from Southwest to Northeast in summer and from Northeast to Southwest in winter.

According to "Perpiplus Maris Erythraei", a Greek sailor named Hippalos, recognized that this wind was useful in navigating from Arabia to India.

Thereafter, the monsoon was named the Hippalos Wind. As an omen for increased flows of investment and technology between Asia and Africa, it was decided to name the AAITPC the Hippalos Centre.