Riyadh, Nov. 25, 2022, SPA -- 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 today at the headquarters of the Council of Saudi Chambers of Commerce (CSC). During the elections, each of Noaf bint Abdullah Alrakan and Mohamed bin Saad Al-Ajlan was chosen as vice president among optimistic expectations that the council would play a greater role in boosting trade exchanges between the two countries in the coming period. 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 and that those relations are considered an ideal global example in the field of fruitful cooperation and strategic partnership based on a firm constitutional and organizational framework, citing the Saudi Japanese Joint Committee, the Saudi Japanese Visions 2030 and the Saudi Japanese Business Council which works under the umbrella of the Council of Saudi Chambers of Commerce in addition to bilateral cooperation agreements and MoUs in a number of fields. According to official reports, trade excahnge between Saudi Arabia and Japan amounted to more than SR600 billion in the last five years, while it reached nearly SR 125 billion in 2021, out of which SR 102 billion went to Saudi exports to Japan against SR23 billion as 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 18:20 LOCAL TIME 15:20 GMT 0011 www.spa.gov.sa/w1818302