fell in the 1980s. Amounting to 1.8 percent in 1960, exports to this region rose to 11.1 percent of total Japanese exports in 1980 but then declined to 3.6 percent by 1988. Part of Japan's strategy to ensure oil supplies is to encourage investment in oil-supplying countries. However, such investment have never kept pace with Japan's investments in other regions. The country's expanding need for oil helped push direct investment in the Middle East to 9.3 percent of total direct investments abroad by Japanese companies in 1970, but this share had fallen to 6.2 percent by 1980 and to only 1.8 percent by 1988. The Iran–Iraq War (1980–88) was a major factor in the declining interest of Japanese investors, exemplified by the fate of a large US$3 billion petrochemical complex in Iran, which was almost complete when the Islamic revolution took place in Iran in 1979. Completion was delayed first by political concerns (when United States embassy personnel were held hostage) and then by repeated Iraqi bombing raids. The project was finally canceled in 1989, with losses for both Japanese companies and the Japanese government, which had provided insurance for the project. In the 1990s, urbanization in several Gulf states, especially Dubai, led to a number of profitable contracts for Japanese construction companies. Western Europe Japan's trade with Western Europe grew steadily but had been relatively small well into the 1980s considering the size of this market. In 1980 Western Europe supplied only 7.4 percent of Japan's imports and took 16.6 percent of its exports. However, the relationship began to change very rapidly after 1985. West European exports to Japan increased two and one-half times in just the three years from 1985 to 1988 and rose as a share of all Japanese imports to 16 percent. (Much of this increase came from growing Japanese interest in West European consumer items, including luxury automobiles.) Likewise, Japan's exports to Western Europe rose rapidly after 1985, more than doubling by 1988 and accounting for 21 percent of all Japan's exports. By 1990 Western Europe's share of Japan's imports had risen to 18 percent and the share of Japan's exports that it received had risen to 22 percent. In 1990 the major European buyers of Japanese exports were West Germany (US$17.7 billion) and Britain (US$10.7 billion). The largest European suppliers to Japan were West Germany (US$11.5 billion), France (US$7.6 billion), and Britain (US$5.2 billion).