Economic-Technical Cooperation

Saudi Arabian-Japanese Economic Relations

 Trades between Saudi Arabia and Japan are complementary to each other. Saudi Arabia provides Japan with no less than 29% of its petroleum needs, while Japan supplies various sorts of machinery and appliances. Japan is the second largest trade partner of Saudi Arabia, topped only by the United States.

SR (million)

65,386

49,325

31,816

• Arabian Oil Company of Japan

 The economic and technical cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Japan began with Arabian Oil Company of Japan acquiring an oil concession in 1957 over the offshore area of the ex-Neutral Zone between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The company hit oil in the first well it drilled, and continued operations for the following 40 years until the concession expired in 2000.

• Economic-technical cooperation agreements

 Between the two governments as well, an economic-technical cooperation agreement was signed in 1975, and a joint committee was organized to discuss ways and areas of cooperation.
 Symbolic of the Saudi-Japanese co-operational bonds is the Riyadh Technical Electronics Institute, where numbers of Japanese specialists were engaged in technological training for Saudi Arabian youth.

 In October 1998, when H.R.H. Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz visited Japan, the Japan-Saudi Arabia Cooperation Agenda was signed. One of the fruits of the Agenda is the Automobile Technical Training Institute inaugurated in 2003 in Jeddah, in which young Saudis are learning to acquire car repair-maintenance skills.

 In the energy sector, Saudi Aramco, the largest oil conglomerate in the world, recently acquired about 15 percent share in Showa-Shell to secure an export of 300,000 bpd of Saudi crude oil to the Japanese petrochemical market. In the meantime, a joint project worth US$4.3 billion involving the partnership between Saudi Aramco and Sumitomo Chemicals in the Rabigh industrial complex is in its initial process.