The agreement was announced following an official visit of Labor Minister Adel Fakieh to the UK this week. The cooperation will help the human resources sector, said Saudi Ambassador to the UK Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf in a press statement Wednesday.

Prince Mohammed said 62 British universities represented by hundreds of officials and education experts are participating in an international education exhibition under way in Riyadh.

“This is comfortably the biggest delegation of any country to the exhibition for the second year running,” said British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Tom Phillips.

Phillips met with Minister of Higher Education Khaled Al-Anqari and visited the stands being run by the British Council and the embassy.

Referring to the growing relations between Riyadh and London in education and training, the British ambassador said: “There are currently 16,000 Saudi students in the UK. That is because they know that the UK has a world-class reputation for excellence in higher education and training.”

Sheffield/Leeds are collaborating with the Riyadh-based King Saud University on nanotechnology, while Queen’s University in Belfast has signed an agreement with Jeddah's King Abdulaziz University on chemistry. The KAUST, on its part, has signed agreements with Cambridge, Imperial College and Oxford University. Queen Margaret University of Edinburgh is involved in a partnership with Al-Riyada Nursing College in Jeddah.

In all, 371 universities and colleges from 35 countries are participating in the education exhibition.