Bilateral trade between Japan and the six GCC countries declined by 40.6 percent in 2009 to $98.3 billion, compared to 171.7 billion in 2008. While Japan's imports from the GCC shrank by 44.02 percent to $80.72 billion, exports contracted by 36.28 percent to $17.56 billion. This decline in the trade value is attributed mainly to the decline in the price of crude oils - which fell by an average 40.5 percent in 2009, and partly to the economic recession that followed the global financial crisis. The value of crude oil imports from GCC to Japan covered 63.3 percent or $62.25 billion of the total value of trade between the two sides. In spite of a steep fall in price, the volume of crude oil imports to Japan had also declined nearly by 9 percent, indicating the economic slowdown in Japan. Japan's trade with all GCC countries have declined in varying degrees during 2009. While UAE-Japan trade declined by 51.09 percent, trade with Saudi Arabia declined by 40.65 percent. Japan's imports from the GCC countries covered 14.6 percent of its total imports from the world over, whereas, its exports to the GCC covered just more than 3 percent of the total exports. Saudi Arabia topped the Japan-GCC trade, with a share of 35.20 percent, while UAE came second with a share of 29.74 percent. Qatar stood in the third place with 17.88 percent, followed by Kuwait with 10.42 percent. Oman and Bahrain had shared with trade at the rate of 5.78 percent and 0.98 percent respectively. The value of Japan's imports from Bahrain increased by 26.1 percent to $524.1 million last year fuelled by increased import of petroleum and petroleum products, according to a report. Import of crude oils and light oil preparations increased 72.1 percent ($44.1 million) and 61.7 percent ($427.5 million) respectively, said a report from the Japan External Trade Organization. The volume of import of light oil preparations rose by 160.8 percent to 6.93 million barrels, from just 0.26 million barrels in 2008. Under foodstuff, import of frozen crab, termed as “swimming crab” increased 36.3 percent to $7.02 million. The volume of frozen crab import from Bahrain has been increasing constantly for the past few years. Against an import of 656,615kg of frozen crabs in 2007, the import increased to 1.4 million kg in 2008 and 1.7 million kg in 2009. Import of another traditional item - semi-finished aluminum, however, declined by 57.9 percent to 33.7 million in 2009 caused by decline in price as well as a decline in the volume of import. The import volume of unwrought aluminum decreased 43.80 percent and that of unwrought aluminum alloy 32.99 percent. Similarly, the average price of aluminum had also declined from $2.79 per kg to $2.02 per kg for unwrought aluminum and from $2.83 per kg to $1.81 per kg for unwrought aluminum alloy. Japan's export of machinery and equipment that covered 89.5 percent of Japan's total exports to Bahrain suffered a setback where the value was reduced to $390.5 million in 2009 against 862.7 million in 2008. Though export of electrical machinery remained stable, export of general machinery and transport equipment recorded declines. Some of the items that recorded increase in exports were seamless pipes of iron or steel, non-ferrous metal products and non-metallic mineral products such as brake linings and brake pads.
