Middle East & North Africa
In the Middle East and North Africa, resource abundance is expected to spur growth. While striving to bolster relationships with major business partners, Marubeni’s policy in the region is two-fold—to further expand trade not only in energy, but also in areas such as chemical products, transportation machinery, and food, and to focus on infrastructure and oil and gas-related projects, where it has advantages.
Shingo Tsuda
Managing Executive Officer,
Regional CEO for Middle East & North Africa
Highlights of Operations in the Region (Market) and Initiatives in Fiscal 2010
Leveraging massive capital gained from energy businesses, especially oil, this region is aggressively promoting both downstream resource and energy development and the development of lifeline infrastructure, such as water, electricity, housing, and transportation.
With oil prices at consistently high levels, the economies of countries within the region are expected to see additional growth. In this context, Marubeni is aiming to extend its wide-ranging businesses, namely operations, trade and EPC, even further. The contribution of energy to regional economies is extremely high, at around 70%. In addition to expanding this figure, the region is also concentrating on developing more projects, primarily in infrastructure and plants, and expanding its commodity base. In fiscal 2010, Marubeni focused attention on participation in projects covering electric power, water production, and oil and gas-related fields. At the same time, the Company worked to expand its trade not only in LNG, crude oil, and petroleum products, but also base cargo trade in areas such as food, chemical products, and transportation machinery.
Initiatives in Fiscal 2011
In this region, along with country risks and terrorism concerns tied to historical legacies, democratization is another factor fueling uncertainty. While these issues are difficult to navigate, the region also harbors high market potential. Its importance to Marubeni thus remains unchanged. Together with promoting more robust initiatives with major partners on the ground, we will also leverage our networks in Europe, another area of my responsibility, to expand Marubeni’s broad business scope, with the aim of creating a more pronounced presence in the region.
