Riyadh – Mubasher: Saudi Arabia's trade surplus with Japan surged 51.8% year-on-year in August, reaching SAR 10.65 billion ($2.84 billion), compared to SAR 7.01 billion ($1.87 billion), Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry said on Wednesday.
The surplus top-up was attributed a 43.8% increase in Saudi exports to Japan to SAR 11.74 billion during August, from SAR 8.17 billion in the same month the year earlier, the ministry added.
Year-on-year, the oil-rich nation's imports from Japan fell 5.4% to SAR 1.09 billion from SAR 1.16 billion.
In August, Japan suffered a $3.96 billion deficit in trade balance with Saudi, against $862.79 million surplus in the corresponding month of 2017.
On a separate note, Saudi Aramco has been storing its crude oil in Okinawa since February 2011. Japan gets a priority claim stockpiles in case of emergency and treats them as quasi-government inventory.
Japanese authorities are counting half of the Aramco’s barrels as part of their national strategic reserves.
