BRIEF, working jointly with the Corporate Group (Dubai), was commissioned by the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) to prepare an institutional assessment of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Customs Union and its evolving trade architecture. The study responded to the resumption of Japan–GCC Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations and the strong interest among Japanese firms in deepening trade with the region: with the GCC’s common external tariff of five percent applying to a large share of Japan’s exports, the engagement was designed to give Japanese companies and policymakers an accurate, current understanding of the customs union as they weighed future business in the Gulf. The completed report was delivered to JETRO in its specified presentation format, accompanied by the full set of underlying data, charts, and graphs in editable form.

The assessment delivered a comprehensive overview of the GCC Customs Union spanning its legal framework, governance arrangements, and recent operational developments—including the move to a twelve-digit HS classification—while profiling tariff structures and the sensitive sectors and high-tariff product lines of individual member states. Beyond the institutional picture, the study examined the practical frictions in how the union operates, including rules-of-origin verification, customs clearance and duty collection, intra-regional logistics, divergences in national policy, and the coexistence of bilateral EPAs with GCC-wide arrangements. It further traced the union’s external FTA landscape and the implications of these dynamics for Japanese companies, identifying concrete pathways for enhanced Japan–GCC trade engagement at both the bloc and member-state levels.

To build this picture, the team combined structured secondary research—drawing on public-domain sources, paid databases, country reports, and academic literature—with primary stakeholder engagement across GCC customs authorities, the policy establishment, trade and industry associations, and country trade representatives. The work was sequenced through an inception meeting, tool development, thematic analysis, and an interim report at the three-week mark, with insights from stakeholder interactions feeding directly into the final analysis. The joint BRIEF–Corporate Group team brought to the assignment prior work on the GCC Customs Union’s structure and governance, extensive experience with customs procedures and trade facilitation as long-standing advisors to the Government of India, and an established working relationship with JETRO across India and the wider region—enabling the study to deliver both institutional depth and practical, business-relevant guidance to JETRO and its stakeholders.