ABSTRACT
Japan’s relations with the developing nations had achieved by 1979 an importance in foreign economic policy not seen in three decades of vigorous trade and economic ties with the developing world. The Japanese Prime Minister, Ōhira Masayoshi, addressed the Fifth United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in Manila in May and received a warm response for his promises of more and better aid, support for the Common Fund for international commodity stabilisation, improved access for developing country exports, and renewed efforts to develop manpower policies for the Third World. This was in marked contrast to the strongly critical reaction of the poorer nations to Japan’s lacklustre performance at the first UNCTAD fifteen years earlier. By June 1979 official DAC figures showed that Japan was well on the way to achieving her goal of doubling Official Development Assistance (admittedly in dollar terms) between 1977 and 1980, and it appeared that Japan’s foreign economic policy-makers were committed to a larger, more positive contribution to solving the North-South issue.
