MANAMA, 7 July 2007 — In the backdrop of $110 billion in trade between the GCC and Japan in 2006, a senior Japanese government official yesterday said that the conclusion of the Japan-GCC free trade agreement would be a crucial for Japan and GCC as a bloc.
Kazunori Tanaka, senior deputy minister of finance of Japan, who held talks with Bahrain’s Minister of Finance Shaikh Ahmed ibn Mohammed Al-Khalifa and discussed the developments on the Japan-GCC FTA and bilateral trade issues, said that it would be in the interest of both sides to conclude the agreement without wasting much of time.
According to official estimates, the trade between Gulf Cooperation Council and Japan increased 33 percent year-on-year basis, rising to a staggering $110.45 billion last year. Japan’s imports from GCC increased at an average rate of 21 percent per year from 2002 to 2006 and the average growth rate for exports to GCC stood at 13 percent, which resulted in Japan’s widening trade deficit. The rapid increase was primarily owed to Japan’s soaring imports from GCC, which hit a record high of 11.1 trillion yen. Japan registered a deficit of nearly 9.3 trillion yen in its trade with GCC in 2006, with its exports to GCC remaining relatively stable.
The minister said that Japan’s nuclear power technology could be one of the key areas of co-operation for GCC what we call the new era of green technology.
