By Norihiro Okuda
I would like to extend my heartfelt welcome to Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud on the occasion of his visit to Japan. It will be his first official visit in three years. The last time he visited Japan in 2014, he was Crown Prince.
In the course of King Salman’s visit to Japan, both Japan and Saudi Arabia will seek to strengthen our bilateral ties in various fields. We will take up issues with regard to not only the economy, but also culture and entertainment in order to achieve the goals of Vision 2030, as well as security cooperation. In addition, regional issues of East Asia will be part of the meeting agendas. It is essential for peace and stability in the international community for “the rule of law” to be respected and we would like to share this point of view with the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. We would also like to exchange views on Middle East regional issues, such as Yemen and Syria.
Taking this opportunity, I would like to briefly touch upon the recent visit of Deputy Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman in September 2016. The visit was indeed a magnificent opportunity for both Saudi Arabia and Japan to reaffirm sound bilateral relations of cooperation in various fields over the past six decades, and to kick off an enhanced stage of collaboration for Saudi Arabia to create a vibrant society and thriving economy through implementing Saudi Vision 2030 and the National Transformation Program 2020.
Japan highly commends a series of various initiatives to reform the Kingdom’s economy and society, and it wants to actively cooperate with Saudi Arabia to achieve the goals that the vision sets out. For that purpose, both countries established the “Joint Group for Saudi-Japan Vision 2030” on the occasion of the visit by Deputy Crown Prince Muhammad. Immediately after that, the delegation headed by H.E. Hiroshige Seko, the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry held the first meeting of the Joint Group with Saudi counterparts on 9th October in Riyadh, where they discussed in detail areas of potential cooperation, in such fields as energy, health care, retailing, animation and intellectual property. Thus, Japan took quick action to respond to the positive outcome of the Deputy Crown Prince’s visit.
The Joint Group for Saudi-Japan Vision 2030 has established the following sub-groups that are to be led and represented by high-level experts and officials from both sides.
1) Trade and Investment Opportunities
2) Investment and Finance
3) Energy and Industry
4) SME and Capacity Building
5) Culture and Sports
Since the first meeting of the Joint Group, both countries have been accelerating detailed discussions to identify specific areas and practical ways of cooperation. Among these, areas such as infrastructure, entertainment, energy, Aramco IPO, IoT, big data, AI, and robots are considered priorities.
Saudi Arabia and Japan hope to agree on high-priority projects at a ministerial-level meeting in Tokyo that, we hope, will be held on the occasion of King Salman’s visit.
Last but not least, we want to promote a relationship with Saudi Arabia in the military field. We welcome more frequent and more detailed discussion on regional security affairs between the two countries,
We will also focus on possible future defense exchanges or cooperation including high-level reciprocal visits of high-ranking defense officials and cooperation on defense-related equipment.
I am pleased to note that Saudi Arabia has just appointed its Defense Attache in Tokyo. He is the very first Defense Attache from Saudi Arabia to Japan. His appointment is the symbol of the deepening relations between the two countries. I wish him great success in promoting military cooperation and working together with our Defense Attache in Riyadh.
Saudi Arabia and Japan have jointly expanded economic cooperation since 1975, when the “Agreement on Economic and Technical Cooperation Between Saudi Arabia and Japan” was concluded. Saudi Arabia was the largest crude oil exporter in 2015 to Japan. Japan imported 1.1 million barrels per day of crude oil from Saudi Arabia in 2015.
For Saudi Arabia, Japan was the 4th largest exporter and the 3rd largest importer in 2014. For Japan, Saudi Arabia was the 5th largest exporter (JPY 3 trillion, mainly crude oil and LPG), and the 21st largest importer of Japanese products (JPY 0.8 trillion) in 2015.
It is clear that Saudi Arabia will continue to be the main reliable provider of oil for Japan’s energy security. Also, Saudi Arabia will be one of the prominent importers of Japanese industrial products. This shows that the two countries will remain excellent trade partners. But I hope to see more investments both inbound and outbound as well as joint investments in business opportunities outside the Kingdom.
As of 2010, cumulative foreign direct investment (FDI) from Japan to Saudi Arabia was US$14.5 billion, being the 4th largest investing country. The statistics on Japan’s side shows that the FDI between 2012 and 2015 was JPY 162 billion.
Traditionally, the main focus of Japan’s FDI has been on the Saudi petrochemical sector, of which the highlight is the investment in Petro Rabigh, amounting to a total joint investment of US$16 billion. Meanwhile, there have been an increasing number of investments from Japan in the manufacturing sector, such as trucks, power generation turbines, pipes, valves, subsea high voltage power cables, water treatment membranes and so on.
We have no doubt that Japan’s FDI to Saudi Arabia will keep increasing. Meanwhile, Japan also welcomes Saudi FDI to Japan in various sectors.
In terms of cultural projects, we are invigorating exchange and cooperation with the Saudi government toward Saudi Vision 2030. We hope that our Saudi partner will make use of our experience, knowledge and technology in the field of culture, entertainment and sports.
In this regard, we are very pleased to announce that we will hold a Japan Cultural Week in April this year, based on the memorandum of cooperation in the field of cultural promotion exchanged last September.
In addition, we are planning to further accelerate exchanges in the sports field ahead of the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics in 2020. We dispatched four karate experts in January and we will dispatch judo experts in March, responding to the requests of the Saudi Karate and Judo Federation. My big dream is that in this way, Saudi athletes will be able to win some gold medals in judo and karate in the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.
Norihiro Okuda is the Ambassador of Japan to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
