Japanese Officials Cite Deep Historical Ties, New Trade Openings at Maldives Business Seminar

Japanese government and trade promotion and development agency officials pointed to decades of cooperation with the Maldives and highlighted new opportunities for Japanese businesses at a seminar held jointly by JETRO, Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), JICA, the Maldives Embassy in Japan; and business associations from both countries.

Historical ties and a widening opportunity

Hiromi Sumi, a METI official from its Southwest Asia division, said Japan and the Maldives have built their relationship on decades of friendship and trust. She noted that 2025 marked the 60th anniversary of Maldivian independence and that 2027 will mark 60 years since the two countries established diplomatic relations. She said Japan's parliamentary vice minister for foreign affairs attended the Maldives' independence anniversary ceremony last year as a special government envoy.

Sumi said Japan has been one of the Maldives' main development partners since the 1980s, citing coastal protection work around the capital, Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteer programs, and reconstruction support following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. She said 14 Japanese affiliated companies currently operate in the Maldives and that Japanese tourist arrivals exceed 30,000 a year, but added there remains "significant room" for the two countries' economic relationship to grow.

Economic snapshot and trade opportunities

Daisuke Shikama, director of JETRO's Colombo office, presented an economic overview. He said the Maldives spans about 1,200 islands across 298 square kilometers, roughly half the area of Tokyo's 23 wards, with a population of about 530,000. According to a 2025 Japanese foreign ministry survey he cited, 14 Japanese companies and 98 Japanese nationals are based in the country.

Shikama said the Maldives welcomed more than 2 million tourists in 2025 and that per capita GDP exceeds 14,000 US dollars, a figure independently corroborated by Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) data showing nominal per capita GDP of approximately 14,600 US dollars that year. He cited a World Bank forecast of a slowdown to about 0.7 percent GDP growth in 2026, attributed to regional conditions in the Middle East, with recovery to about 6.7 percent expected in 2027 as tourism demand rebounds. That 2026 estimate is notably lower than the Maldives Monetary Authority's own most recent projection of 5.3 percent growth for 2026, a discrepancy this report has not been able to resolve.

He said tuna products dominate Maldivian exports, sent mainly to Thailand and Europe, while the country imports a broad range of consumer and infrastructure goods from the UAE, China, India and Europe, which he said represents an opportunity for Japanese exporters. MMA data shows the Maldives recorded roughly 443.7 million US dollars in goods exports in 2025 against about 3.4 billion US dollars in imports, a gap that has kept the current account deficit at around 6.2 percent of GDP, underscoring the import dependency Shikama described.

Tourism, Japanese cuisine and a new seafood export channel

Shikama said tourism accounts for roughly 30 percent of GDP, with nearly 60 percent of 2025 visitors coming from Europe and 31.4 percent from the Asia-Pacific region. China ranked as the top source market for a second consecutive year, followed by Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy.

He cited 2024 data showing average tourist spending in the Maldives of about 2,338 US dollars over an average stay of 7.4 days, or roughly 316 US dollars a day, which he said compared favorably to Hawaii on a per-day basis. He said Japanese cuisine, including sushi, teppanyaki, wagyu, and sake, has become an established offering at luxury resorts, which hold roughly 70 percent of the country's bed capacity.

Separately, Japan's agriculture and fisheries ministry will begin issuing health certificates for seafood exports to the Maldives starting in August, according to information Shikama presented, a change he said should open new export opportunities for Japanese seafood products aimed at resorts and Japanese restaurants.

Fisheries and JICA's development programs

Shikama said fisheries account for 2.8 percent of Maldivian GDP but a large share of exports and that the Maldives practices pole-and-line tuna fishing, which has lower environmental impact than other methods. He said a Japanese company operates a factory in the Maldives producing katsuobushi, or dried bonito flakes.

Motoo Taki, JICA's representative in the Maldives, outlined the agency's cooperation framework, based on Japan's 2020 country development policy for the Maldives, which he said focuses on sustainable economic growth that accounts for the country's vulnerability to external shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on tourism.

Taki said JICA's work covers three areas: regional development, including support for reef fish supply chains to domestic markets and technical cooperation for guesthouse-based tourism, both due to begin within the current fiscal year; governance capacity building, including customs and law enforcement training conducted with Japan's embassy; and environmental management, climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction, including planned improvements to aging seawall infrastructure around Male and coastal erosion countermeasures for outer islands. He also said JICA is planning support for expanding inter-island public ferry services, in response to a government request.

Investment climate under Vision 2040

A representative of Invest Maldives, the government's foreign investment promotion agency, presented the country's investment landscape under President Muizzu's Vision 2040 agenda. The presentation described the Maldives' location at the crossroads of major Indian Ocean shipping lanes as a natural gateway linking the Middle East, Africa and Asia, supported by a young workforce, expanding air and sea connectivity, and nationwide digital infrastructure.

Questions from attendees

During a question and answer session, Shikama said Japanese wagyu is particularly popular among luxury resort guests, alongside sushi and other Japanese ingredients, and that premium sake also contributes to resort marketing. He said environmental technologies, including water treatment, energy efficiency, and renewable energy, are increasingly in demand to support sustainable tourism, along with disaster prevention and coastal protection infrastructure such as breakwaters and flood countermeasures.

Asked about halal certification and alcohol-free requirements for food exports, Shikama said importing such products is possible but requires individual import licenses, which he said raises the barrier for importers. He said products sold outside resort areas generally must not contain ingredients prohibited under halal standards, and that English-language ingredient labeling is important for buyers to verify compliance.

On a question about currency exchange practices, Taki said the official peg is around 15.42 Maldivian rufiyaa to the US dollar, consistent with MMA data showing the exchange rate has held at that level since 2024. He said actual exchange rates at private money changers and in commercial transactions can differ from the official rate, and vary by exchanger and by transaction.

The seminar underscored a relationship its participants described as long-standing but still underdeveloped in commercial terms, with Japanese officials pointing to new openings, from an August seafood export certification scheme to demand for environmental and coastal protection technology, even as they acknowledged practical hurdles around halal certification, shipping logistics and currency exchange that Japanese businesses would need to navigate.