Japan cuts to hit trade with UAE

Midle East trade with Japan is likely to be hit after the country's export credit agency moves to slash lending desp ite a sharp rise in exports to the region this year. Japan Bank for International Co-operation (JBIC), the global arm of the government-backed Japan Finance, told Bloomberg it expected to cut lending by 50 per cent this year after doubling it from 2007 to last year.

"JBIC is one of the main organs for dispensing loans for Japan," said Robert Ward, the director of global forecasting at the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and its former Japan analyst. "I would have thought that Asia is large on the list of regions it provides money for, along with the Middle East and Africa, as they have commodities that Japan needs." The news comes as exports show trade between Japan and the region is rebounding after the global financial crisis.

Japanese exports to the Middle East have risen 31 per cent so far this year compared with the same period last year, with imports from the region increasing 58 per cent, according to the Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO). JBIC has been an important source of finance to the region, with the agency stepping up funding during the global recession. "Export performance from Japan to the region is recovering and we hope this recovery will be sustained across the year," said a spokesman for JETRO in Dubai.

"JBIC's facilities are utilised by many Japanese exporters as well as importers in this region." Japan, however, is under pressure to cut expenditure as it looks to reduce its bulging budget deficit after being overtaken by China as the world's second-largest economy. As well as providing a lucrative market for Japanese cars and electronics, the Middle East has also enabled banks and contractors to expand their businesses.

Before the global recession, Japanese builders played a pivotal role in the UAE's construction boom, spearheading work on the Dh28 billion (US$7.62bn) Dubai Metro and helping to build Nakheel's palm-shaped islands off the emirate's coast. According to the JETRO, Japan's imports from the UAE were worth $22.7bn last year. Crude oil last year comprised 77.5 per cent of Japan's imports from the UAE. Nonetheless, problems with payments to Japanese contractors in Dubai have raised questions about the future for Japanese business in the region.

Late payments to Japanese builders in the emirate had caused concern about how the country's businesses should operate in the Middle East, Tatsuo Watanabe, Japan's ambassador to the UAE, said in Abu Dhabi earlier this month. JBIC's total commitments reached ¥3.4 trillion (Dh146.5bn) in the year that ended on March 31, up from ¥1.7bn two years earlier, Moriyuki Aida, JBIC's Middle East chief representative, told Bloomberg.

"We expect our commitments to be half of what they were last year," he said. "It depends on the stabilisation of the financial situation but we would like it to fall as it is not possible to maintain such large operations." The bank's $65.3bn of outstanding commitments at the end of March last year was allotted mainly among three regions, with 35 per cent in Asia-Pacific, 24 per cent in the Americas and 24 per cent in the Middle East, according to Bloomberg.

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