TOKYO: Decline in crude oil price drags down value of Japan – UAE trade in 2015. Results of the first-half 2015 bilateral trade between Japan and the United Arab Emirates showed a steep decline in trade value, resulting from an equal fall in the price of crude oils and gaseous hydrocarbons that Japan imported from the UAE. The value of two-way trade declined by 37.2% to US $ 16.28 billion during the first six months of 2015, compared to US $ 25.92 billion during the same period in 2014. As Japan’s import of crude oils, gases and other petroleum products from the UAE constitute nearly 72% of the total two-way trade; price fluctuations of these commodities greatly affect the size of trade value.
Currently, UAE is Japan’s second largest provider of crude oils, supplying 26.4% of its total crude oil requirements during the first six months of 2015 hence this percentage raised the volume of imported crude oil by 5.9% to 155.41 million barrels compared to 146.78 million barrels during the same period in the previous year. Average price of the said imports from UAE fell by 47.2% to US $ 58.94 per barrel, compared to last year’s US $ 111.66. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia remains to be Japan’s top supplier of crude oils, with a share of 33.1%.
In terms of petroleum gases, UAE ranked fifth among Japan’s top suppliers with a share of 7.2%. Its price fell by 38.4% to US $ 564.93 per metric ton from US $ 905.83. Qatar topped the list of gas suppliers with a share of 19.7% followed by Australia (18.2%), Malaysia (17%) and Russia (8.1%).
For Japan’s aluminum imports from UAE, an average of 11.8% rise in the price of the commodity has been noted resulting from the increase of import volume by nearly 8% in value to US $ 375.27 million. This marks a dropped down value of 3.1% to 158.6 million kg, compared to 163.7 million kg from the last year’s first half. At present, UAE is Japan’s fourth largest supplier of aluminum in the world and the top supplier among the GCC countries.
Japan also imported from the UAE other goods such as copper scraps, precious stones, metals and non-alcoholic beverages. Copper scrap imports decline by 34.2% to US $ 13.64 million while precious stones and metals increased by 42.1% to US $ 11.19 million. On the other hand, imports of non-alcoholic beverages showed an impressive increase registering an export value of US $ 4.47 million from almost zero during the previous year.
