Muscat: Oman’s National Economy Minister, who is currently visiting Japan, met on Wednesday with the CEOs of a number of major Japanese conglomerates to press for enhanced investment in his country’s growing economy.
The official Oman News Agency (ONA) reported that Ahmed Bin Abdulnabi Macki, who is leading a high-level Omani delegation to Tokyo, conferred with corporate bigwigs of Japanese oil and gas, construction, and industrial corporations.
In a presentation to his high-powered audience, Macki outlined opportunities for Japanese investment in Oman’s infrastructural, industrial, energy and transport sectors.
Muscat is ploughing billions of dollars into the modernization of its international airports, construction of maritime hubs, and other big-ticket infrastructure and industrial schemes, said Macki, adding Japan’s entry into these sectors could potentially give way to mutually beneficially economic spin-offs.
Japan is a major trade partner, importing 36 million barrels of Omani crude oil in 2009, representing 2.7 per cent of Japan’s total oil imports for the year. Oman also exported 2.580 million tonnes of LNG to Japan last year, worth around $946 billion.
However, the global economic downturn did have a significant impact on trade volumes between the two countries last year. According to the Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO), reciprocal trade fell almost 40 per cent to $5.7 billion in 2009, against a high of $9.4 billion in 2008.
