China-Arab States Expo closes with $24bn worth of deals

A total of 277 deals worth approximately 156.7 billion yuan ($24bn) have been signed at the fifth China-Arab States Expo that was held in northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region from August 19-22.

The deals covered various fields including electronic information, clean energy, new materials, green food and tourism cooperation, according to UAe state-run news agency WAM.

Among them, an investment of nearly 154 billion yuan was garnered to support 199 projects, while 24 trade projects worth 2.75 billion yuan were also inked during the expo.

At the national level, eight cooperational projects were signed at this expo, with a total investment of 11.18 billion yuan, including Indonesia’s Cirata Floating Photovoltaic Power Plant project and Red Sea integrated smart energy investment project.

Read: Masdar JV starts construction on Indonesia’s first utility-scale floating solar power plant

Meanwhile, eight provinces and cities, including Beijing, Tianjin, Zhejiang, Henan, and Guangdong, have signed 12 investment projects with Arab countries and other countries along the Belt and Road routes, with a total investment of 7.43 billion yuan.

Three policy reports were also released during the expo which covered  economic and trade relations between China and Arab States and South-South cooperation.

This year’s expo was held both online and offline with over than 1,000 domestic and overseas enterprises registered as exhibitors .

Since  the inaugural expo in 2013, the biennial event has attracted more than 5,000 enterprises from around 110 countries. In 2019, a total of 287 deals worth about 185.42 billion yuan were signed at the fourth China-Arab States Expo.

The UAE is one of China’s biggest trade partner in the Arab world and reportedly accounts for 28 per cent of total non-oil trade between China and the region.

Dubai’s non-oil external trade reached Dhs1.182 trillion in 2020. China remained Dubai’s largest trading partner with Dhs142bn worth of exchanges in 2020.