ByFahad Abuljadayel and Abeer Abu Omar
Monday December 12, 2022
Xi Jinping meets and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the royal palace in Riyadh, Dec. 8.Photographer: Yue Yuewei/Xinhua/AP
About $50 billion of investment agreements were signed during the
China summit held in Saudi Arabia last week, the kingdom’s investment
minister said, without giving details on the types of deals or countries
involved.
The pacts included both the private and public
sectors, Khalid Al Falih told Bloomberg on the sidelines of a conference
Sunday in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. He didn’t specify whether the
figure also reflected agreements involving other Arab nations whose
leaders attended too.
Last week’s summit in which
Chinese President Xi Jinping was hosted by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed
bin Salman showcased the Gulf’s deepening ties with Beijing. But while
the visit featured warm words about unity between China and the Middle
East, most of the agreements announced were memorandums of
understanding, and lacked firm timelines or commitments.
China is
seeking to strengthen coordination with Saudi Arabia and its neighbors
on energy policy and exploration. The kingdom, along with Russia, is the
de facto leader of OPEC+, a producers’ cartel that pumps roughly half
the world’s oil.