The company said that this move is designed to better serve Japanese clients as they continue to expand into the region in response to increased trade and investment flows into the Middle East.
The Japan Desk will be led by Osamu Okada, a seasoned banker who’s held, for the past twenty years, various senior positions with global financial institutions in Tokyo and Dubai covering business development, trade finance, cash management, and risk assessment for large as well as SME-level Japanese corporations.
This announcement follows the appointment of Mike Pendill as Middle East head of Citi’s Global Subsidiaries Group based in Dubai.
Citi CEO for the Middle East Division Atiq ur Rehman said trade and investment flows between Japan and the Region are quite compelling. Citi believes that setting up a Japan Desk in the Middle East will enable it to facilitate cross-border activities with Japanese companies and allow the bank to be more responsive on the ground.
Citi’s Global Subsidiaries Group (GSG) is a focused client segment for Citi serving multinationals in more than 170 markets around the globe.
Citi has been in the Arab World for nearly 50 years. It currently offers full scale corporate banking services across ten Arab countries including Egypt, UAE, Lebanon, Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait as well as Pakistan.
