Japan’s government has no plan to invest in state-run oil firm Saudi Aramco’s planned initial public offering, an adviser to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Friday.
But Yasutoshi Nishimura said in an interview that Japan may jointly invest with Saudi Arabia’s government in industrial ventures in the kingdom to help its drive to develop non-oil industries.
“Japan will not invest in Saudi Aramco. Rather, Japan will likely be cooperating in new industries…to reflect Saudi Arabia’s intention to develop new and non-energy industries,” he said.
In April, Saudi Arabia launched radical economic reforms designed to develop non-oil industries to cut its reliance on oil exports and attract billions of dollars of foreign investment. The centrepiece of the reforms is the sale of a stake in Saudi Aramco, which some sources said could be valued as high as $4 trillion.
