Newsletter No. 960
News-Analysis
April 1, 2008

 

MOFA VICE-MINISTER OSAMU UNO IN SAUDI ARABIA

We’ve already mentioned that MOFA Vice-Minister Osamu Uno led the small Japanese delegation that met Saudi King Abdallah on the 24th. Today, the foreign ministry has added some information on their website that we will now note here.

Uno was in Saudi Arabia just for the 23rd and 24th. Aside from the king, he also met Saudi Foreign Ministry official Nizar Obaid Madani and discussed the Japan-Saudi bilateral relationship and the Arab-Israeli peace process. The “Dialogue among Civilizations” event apparently pulled in about one hundred people from thirty different countries. It appears that Professor Yuzo Itagaki was one of the main speakers.

BUSINESS BRIEFS

The following two stories on Japan-Saudi business relations have appeared in December and January, but we have not yet had an occasion to mention them here.

-- It was announced in mid-December that the JGC Corporation that a contract has been signed with the Saudi Polymers Company to provide services for the NCP Project in the North Plot, in Jubail, Saudi Arabia. This project involves the engineering, procurement, and construction of ethylene, metathesis, and other process units to be completed in early 2011. In 2004, JGC had been awarded a similar contract for an integrated styrene facility at Jubail, called the JCP Project, the construction of which is still in progress. JGC is also involved in the PetroRabigh and Hawiyah Natural Gas Liquids Project in the Saudi kingdom.

-- It was reported by the Sankei Shinbun in mid-January that Mizuho Corporate Bank is considering setting up a local unit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to target the growing wealth in the region due to surging crude oil prices. The hope is that the Mizuho unit in Riyadh could be set up by the end of this year. If that happens, they will become the first of the major Japanese banks to do have a unit in the kingdom.