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President John Mahama Thursday morning participated in a special Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) roundtable at the on-going Davos World Economic Forum. The discussions, a follow-up to the June 2013 TICAD V, brought together African leaders, ministers, heads of international organizations and business leaders to identify critical challenges and redefine the role of Japan in Africa's development. President Mahama made a strong case for the speedy and timely implementation of projects agreed between Governments and Businesses and investors. He said the continent was not oblivious of the challenges it faced, and interventions being implemented, such as in the few remaining conflict areas are achieving positive results. �Infrastructure is a constraint and that�s why the engagement with Japan is even more interesting because Japan has the technology and investment and we are willing to partner with both the Japanese government and the private sector to ensure that we fix the infrastructure.� President Mahama said the low level of trade, 11% among countries of the continent was also a challenge needing to be fixed. �We recognise the challenges we have, the obligations we have as nation states to create the environment that makes it conducive for trade and investment to take place but we also must give feedback to our Japanese compatriots, that the period from the conception of projects to financing and delivery is often too long. �We acknowledge that the Japanese private sector must engage. Our formal engagement with Japan was mostly on a government-to-government basis, we think now that the Japanese private sector has the technology, Africa has the resources and I think it could be a win-win partnership.�