"The economic development of China and Arab countries was affected to a certain extent last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The fundamentals of our bilateral economic and trade cooperation are still relatively stable." Recently, Vice Minister of Commerce Qian Keming stated at a press conference of the China-Arab States Expo that China is the first in the world to control the pandemic, and that the economy of Arab countries in 2021 achieved a recovery growth of 1.9% under the premise that the pandemic is effectively controlled. The two sides enjoy great potential for cooperation.
Arab countries are located at the intersection of the “Belt and Road” Initiate and are natural partners for the joint building of the endeavor. Facing the current complex global landscape, China-Arab economic and trade cooperation has shown strong resilience and vigorous vitality. In 2020, China-Arab trade volume reached 239.8 billion U.S. dollars. Among them, China exported goods with a value of 123.1 billion U.S. dollars to Arab countries. During the pandemic, it still achieved a year-on-year growth of 2.2%. Electromechanical and high-tech products accounted for 67.4%, an year-on-year increase of 6.1% and 3.3% respectively.
China-Arab two-way investment and infrastructure cooperation have also achieved rewarding results. As of the end of 2020, China’s direct investment in Arab countries tallied 20.1 billion U.S. dollars, and Arab countries have invested a total of 3.8 billion U.S. dollars in China. The two-way investment covers areas such as oil and gas, construction, manufacturing, logistics, and power. It is the urgent need of Arab countries to boost the economy, improve people’s livelihood, and increase employment, and the infrastructure construction has been strengthened. China-Arab infrastructure cooperation faces the “window period” of rapid development, and the technological expertise and level of bilateral cooperation are also constantly improving. The integration of operations is gaining momentum.
Qian Keming said that China is accelerating the building of a new development paradigm with domestic circulation being the mainstay and the domestic and international circulations reinforcing each other. The grand strategies outlined by Arab countries such as the “Saudi Vision 2030” are also being implemented steadily. With consistent thinking and complementary economic development stages and structures, the prospects for jointly building the “Belt and Road” Initiative and deepening economic and trade cooperation are very broad.
“We must not only consolidate the fundamentals of traditional cooperation, but also open up new areas of cooperation. Based on the industrial diversification of Arab countries, connections could be enhanced in development strategies in emerging industries such as digital economy, new energy, and artificial intelligence.” Qian Keming said that the two sides should further strengthen cooperation in five areas.
The first is to jointly strengthen China-Arab cooperation to fight against the pandemic, including the procurement of medical supplies, investment in the medical and health field, and the joint production of vaccines in the future. Many exchanges and negotiations are ongoing.
The second is to deepen cooperation in production capacity. Based on the economic and trade cooperation park platform built in some Arab countries, the two parties will leverage production capacity cooperation as the starting point to encourage and promote cooperation between enterprises of both sides, and effectively promote the convergence of domestic superior production capacity with the industrial transformation and development of Arab countries.
The third is to promote the facilitation of trade and investment. China and Arab states need to jointly safeguard free trade and the multilateral trading system, and oppose unilateralism and trade protectionism. In addition to accelerating the free trade zone negotiations with the Gulf countries, China will also focus on advancing the establishment of smooth trade working group with Arab countries in the next step.
The fourth is to promote the transformation and upgrading of energy cooperation. On the basis of consolidating traditional bilateral oil and gas cooperation, China will take the goal to achieve carbon peaking and carbon neutrality as an opportunity to promote China-Arab cooperation in new energy and clean energy such as photovoltaics, photo-thermal, and wind energy.
The fifth is to release the potential of innovation cooperation. China will give full play to the industrial advantages of Chinese companies in emerging fields such as high-tech and digital economy to promote innovative cooperation between China and Arab countries in the fields of 5G communications and e-commerce, and open up new space for cooperation.
(Source: CCPIT/ www.chinatradenews.com.cn)
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