Just seven months after Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori announced with much fanfare a $15 billion aid initiative in the area of information technology, concerns are already growing within the government that the plan may eventually fizzle out.
According to government officials, while many developing countries, especially those in Asia — the primary target of the highly-publicized initiative — are likely to vie for a bigger share of the Japanese aid money, domestic companies are generally less than enthusiastic about the program.
The initiative's success will largely depend on how aggressively Japanese companies capitalize on it, because the bulk of the $15 billion aid money is to be extended in the forms of loans and investments by the government-affiliated Japan Bank for International Cooperation, or JBIC, for domestic companies' IT-related projects in developing countries, the officials said.