JEDDAH, 17 September — The Japanese Embassy in Riyadh and the Consulate General in Jeddah have denied reports that Japanese firms have started evacuating their employees.
“The Japanese government has not issued warnings to companies to evacuate their staff. Nor do we have any official confirmation that Japanese firms have asked their employees to leave the Kingdom,” Japanese Consul General Hajime Tanaki told Arab News when asked to comment on the reports yesterday.
“I haven’t heard of any Japanese firm asking its employees to leave the Kingdom. It’s up to individual firms to direct their employees what they want. But there’s nothing official so far,” Tanaki said. “Some Japanese individuals or families might have left or may be leaving on their own, but that has nothing to do with what the reports say.”
Sources at the Japanese Embassy in Riyadh also made similar denials. “There is no truth in reports which said that Japanese companies had been evacuating Japanese citizens from the Kingdom, especially Riyadh and the Eastern Province,” an official at the ambassador’s office in the capital stated.
A spokesman for Abdul Latif Jameel Co., distributor of Japanese Toyota and Lexus vehicles, said the company had not received instructions from the headquarters of Japanese automobiles to this effect.
Reuters from Tokyo, quoting Japanese media reports, said on Saturday that major Japanese firms had begun evacuating their staff from countries neighboring Afghanistan, fearing US military retaliation for last week’s terror attacks in New York and Washington. According to Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper, a major trading firm, Nissho Iwai Corp., had decided to temporarily evacuate its staff and their families from Pakistan, Israel and Yemen.
The newspaper added: “Other big trading firms like Marubeni Corp., Itochu Corp. and Tomen Corp. will evacuate the families of their employees from Pakistan, while Nichimen Corp. has told its employees’ families to leave Pakistan, Iran, the UAE and the Kingdom.”
Automakers Toyota Motor Co., Honda Motor Co. and Suzuki Motor Corp. are among those that have told their employees at various joint ventures in Pakistan to leave the country, the newspaper said.The Mitsubishi Corp. said the company would not disclose details of any evacuation because that could affect its staff’s safety.
