RIYADH, 15 December 2003 — China will be the recipient of SR180 million soft loan facility extended by Saudi Arabia. A delegation from the Saudi Fund for Development (SFD) will visit Beijing next week to sign an agreement to finance the execution of two major road projects in China for which part of the loan facility will be utilized.
This was announced during the inaugural ceremony of a high-profile Chinese trade fair, which was opened by Riyadh Mayor Prince Abdul Aziz Al-Muqrin at the Riyadh Exhibition Center (REC) yesterday evening. Kejian Wang, counselor at the Chinese Embassy, who could not provide more details of the loan facility, said that the SFD officials will sign the agreement on Dec. 22 in Beijing.
Prince Al-Muqrin said “This exhibition of Chinese goods and services is the manifestation of the growing relations between Riyadh and Beijing.” “This fair, the first real effort to sell Chinese goods to the Kingdom, will further boost the commercial links between the two countries,” he said.
Prince Al-Muqrin said that “it is part of a plan to narrow growing trade deficit with Riyadh, which export a great deal of oil to the Chinese mainland”.
During the first 10 months of this year, China posted a $2.5 billion trade deficit with Saudi Arabia, up 84.9 percent compared to the same period last year.
The inaugural ceremony of the fair was attended by Vice Mayor of Shanghai Zhou Yupeng, Chinese Ambassador Wu Chunhua and Counselor Wang and many Saudi officials and diplomats.
More than 200 Chinese delegates from about 130 companies are participating in this five-day event, organized by the Shanghai city government for the first time in the Saudi capital.
Chinese Vice Mayor Yupeng shared the views of Prince Al-Muqrin saying that “the two countries have forged closer relations in almost all sectors”. Yupeng did not rule out the possibility of Saudi investment in oil and petrochemical sector in mainland China.
China has already executed a plan under which it has stepped up its oil imports from Saudi Arabia by an additional one million tons annually, which will boost its annual offtake to eight million tons in 2004 compared to three million tons in the year 2000.
Referring to the exhibition of Chinese goods and services in Riyadh, Prince Al-Muqrin said.
“The commercial relations between the Kingdom and China have been growing progressively and we hope to see a Saudi exhibition in China in near future”. This fair at REC, which is likely to attract some 100,000 Saudi visitors, will be open exclusively for families on Dec. 18.
Yupeng said that “I’m upbeat about the long-term prospects of Chinese products in the Saudi market”.