JAPANESE Prime Minister Fumio Kishida began his four-day trip to Arab states by meeting with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Muhammed bin Salman, to further strengthen the two countries’ cooperation in the energy sector.
The talks were held in Jeddah on the West Coast of the Arabian Peninsula, Sunday, where the two leaders agreed to share technology in order to support the decarbonization and economic diversification of the Middle Eastern nation, while the country continues to give and provide Japan a stable access to oil imports.
Kishida and the Saudi Arabia Crown Prince signed 26 memorandums of cooperation in the energy sector, including one where Tokyo will provide Riyadh with technologies that expand the country’s solar power generation capabilities and innovations using a clean fuel source of hydrogen and ammonia.
It can be noted that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine pushed up the prices of crude oil. And during the meeting, the two leaders agreed to reaffirm their efforts to remain stabilized in the global oil market, since one-third of Japan’s imports of oil are all coming from Saudi Arabia.
Kishida said, after meeting with the crown prince, “We are shifting away from the existing relationship of an oil importer and an exporter and will deepen a new global partnership for the decarbonization era.”
Aside from talks concerning the energy sector, the two leaders also agreed to begin a ‘strategic dialogue’ to further strengthen their bilateral cooperation.
Following Kishida’s visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Japanese prime minister is also expected to travel to the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
