Tareq bin Abdulhadi Al-Gahtani was elected President of the Saudi side of the Saudi Japanese Business Council for a new term of office at elections held Saturday at the headquarters of the Federation of Saudi Chambers (FSC). During the elections, Noaf Bint Abdullah Alrakan and Mohamed Bin Saad Al-Ajlan were chosen as vice president among optimistic expectations that the council would play a greater role in boosting trade exchanges between the two countries. In remarks on the occasion, Al-Gahtani said that the Saudi Japanese economic relations are enjoying the interest and care of the two countries’ leaderships. These relations are considered an ideal global example of fruitful cooperation and strategic partnership based on a firm constitutional and organizational framework. He cited the Saudi Japanese Joint Committee, the Saudi Japanese Visions 2030 and the Saudi Japanese Business Council which works under the umbrella of the FSC in addition to bilateral cooperation agreements and MoUs in a number of fields. According to official reports, trade exchange between Saudi Arabia and Japan amounted to more than SR600 billion in the last five years, while it reached nearly SR125 billion in 2021, out of which SR102 billion went to Saudi exports to Japan against SR23 billion of Saudi imports from Japan. The trade exchange grew during 2020-2021 at a rate of 49%, exports at 46.7% and imports at 4.4%, according to official figures. — SPA