Skip to content Skip to Search
Skip navigation

GCC and Japan resume free trade deal talks  

By Pramod Kumar
GCC Japan free trade Oman News Agency
Japan’s foreign minister Yoshimasa Hayashi meets his Omani counterpart Sayyid Badr Albusaidi at the joint ministerial meeting between the GCC and Japan held in Riyadh

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries have restarted talks on a free trade pact with Japan, an Omani minister has confirmed.

“We announced today the resumption of talks on the signing and reaching an agreement to free trade between Japan and the GCC countries,” Oman’s foreign minister Sayyid Badr Albusaidi told a press conference this week.

His Japanese counterpart Yoshimasa Hayashi, who was on a visit to the Middle East, was also present.

Albusaidi added that the pact will have a direct positive impact on both sides.

During a trip to the region last month, Japan’s prime minister Fumio Kishida met GCC secretary general Jasem Mohamed Al Budaiwi and agreed to resume negotiations on a free trade agreement.

Japan is aiming to strengthen relations with oil producers in the Middle East to ensure a stable energy supply. It relies on the GCC states – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – for over 90 percent of its crude oil.

A Japanese foreign ministry spokesperson in July said there was no timeline set for the deal’s conclusion.   

Trade between Japan and the GCC members stood at around $80 billion in 2021, with Saudi Arabia and the UAE making up around 80 percent of the total.

The relationship is growing rapidly, with Japan’s trade with the UAE and Saudi Arabia alone topping $100 billion in 2022.

“Oil underpins much of GCC-Japan trade,” Freddie Neve, senior Middle East associate at think tank Asia House, said last month. “But Japan is increasingly interested in the opportunities emerging from the Gulf’s development of alternative energy sources, such as hydrogen.”

The UAE has the largest number of Japanese expatriates in the Middle East at 4,500 and hosts about 340 Japanese companies. 

Latest articles

Modern buildings in the city center of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Riyadh leads Saudi Arabia’s hot property market

Strong population and employment growth in Riyadh is driving a surge in real estate transactions as new properties cannot come on the market fast enough. A dramatic rise in the number of deals in the 12 months to the end of June was also visible in Jeddah and Dammam, according to a report this week […]

Adnoc LNG

Adnoc drops plan to upgrade UAE’s only LNG facility

An upgrade of the Das Island liquefied natural gas plant has been cancelled by Adnoc Gas, as it shifts priorities towards greenfield developments. “We have a funnel of exciting opportunities in which we can invest while at the same time exercising capital discipline,” Adnoc Gas said. Das Island’s liquefaction and export terminal, the only LNG […]

The new technology can help with tracking projects as contractors often have no idea how many workers are on site at one time and workers are frequently unsupervised

Saudi startup’s smart helmets upping safety on building sites

When Hassan AlBalawi first proposed a smart helmet that would track all employee movements on building sites, construction companies could not see the point.  “We were focusing on this problem of how to get technology into the construction field, measuring the drowsiness of construction workers. But it turned out the construction companies didn’t know or care,” […]

Aircraft, Airliner, Airplane

Kuwait Airways 2023 revenue soars 16% to $1bn

Increased passenger volume and flight operations increased revenues at Kuwait Airways by 16 percent in 2023. The topline reached KD335 million ($1.1 billion) last year, as the number of flights soared 26 percent year on year to 32,839, the state-run Kuwait News Agency reported, citing chairman Abdulmohsen Alfagaan. No details were shared on profit or […]