Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori met with President Jerry Rawlings of the Republic of Ghana at the Prime Minister's Official Residence. During the 30-miute meeting the Prime Minister said that Japan considered Ghana the locomotive of African stability and growth and that he hoped for still better relations between the two countries. Noting that debt relief for the poorest countries was on the agenda of the July Group of Eight Kyushu-Okinawa Summit, he praised the firm will with which Ghana was addressing structural economic reform despite its economic difficulties and pledged Japan's continued support for Ghana's socioeconomic development. (President Rawlings, who had arrived in Japan on June 11 to attend the June 13 International Symposium on Perspectives of the Twenty-first Century: A Search for Comprehensive Conflict Prevention, organized by the Japan Institute of International Affairs and the Japan Foundation, delivered the keynote address, "Conflict Prevention: Experiences in Africa.")