SAUDI ARABIA: Chinese ambassador to Saudi Arabia says his country's trade with Saudi Arabia has increased by 50 percent over the past year

Record ID: 188926

  • Title: SAUDI ARABIA: Chinese ambassador to Saudi Arabia says his country's trade with Saudi Arabia has increased by 50 percent over the past year
  • Date: 17th January 2012
  • Summary: RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA (JANUARY 14, 2012) (REUTERS) (NIGHTSHOTS) EXTERIOR OF CHINA MART WITH SIGN WRITTEN IN ARABIC AND ENGLISH, READING: "CHINA MART" WIDE OF INTERIOR OF CHINA MART WOMAN SHOPPER LOOKING AT PRODUCTS FAMILY SHOPPING AT MART WITH BIG BANNER IN BACKGROUND WRITTEN IN ARABIC AND ENGLISH, READING: "CHINA MART"
  • Embargoed: 1st February 2012 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia
  • Country: Saudi Arabia
  • Topics: Business,International Relations,Industry,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA5YJAYAY1LLA68AGDZP2U8MXMZ
  • Story Text: In the Saudi capital Riyadh, a huge shopping mall dedicated to selling chinese-made products is regularly full of shoppers.
    China Mart sells everything from household goods to decorative furnishings and luxurious body massagers.
    The representative of a Chinese company which manufactures car-seat massagers said sales have been so steady the company has planned to expand to more than one dozen stores over the kingdom.
    "We already opened about one year (ago) and now within this one year we found the Saudi market is very good, so now we already opened another two branches and for our plan -- we plan to open about another 20 branch more within two years in all Saudi," he told Reuters.
    China is already Saudi Arabia's biggest oil customer and the kingdom is keen to diversify its economic ties.
    In one corner of the giant mall, a couple browsed through a colourful assortment of Chinese made curtains.
    "We came here looking for some curtains and we found some really good ones -- in terms of price and colour variety. God willing, we will buy some from here," shopper Faris al Motiari said.
    Trade in non-energy sectors between the two countries has boomed over the past year, Chinese and Saudi officials say.
    China's ambassador to Saudi Arabia said trade between the two countries had doubled in 12 months.
    "According to the statistics, until the end of October (2011), the volume of trade exchange between our two countries (China and Saudi Arabia) was 52 billion (US) dollars, this is a 50 percent increase compared with last year," Ambassador Li Chengwen told Reuters.
    Saudi Arabia's President of the Saudi-Chinese Business Council Abdurrahman al-Jeraisy said trade will continue to flourish as long as Chinese goods maintain a high standard of quality.
    "The most important characteristic of successful Chinese products is that of quality -- they have to be of the highest quality and from our end, we have to monitor Chinese imports to ensure they fall under Saudi specifications. From the Chinese end, they must make sure those manufacturing products that are being exported to Saudi Arabia, are making them within the Saudi specification requirements," al-Jeraisy said.
    In his office in Riyadh, the man behind the massive China Mart said there are planned expansions to further plant Chinese feet in Saudi Arabia's goods trade sector.
    "Saudi Arabia is a very rich oil country with very high income every year and customers are looking for high quality products, so we are going to make sure we bring high quality Chinese products into Saudi Arabia to meet this high demand for the country's growing population," said Wei Shaming, president of China Mart.
    Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao pressed Saudi Arabia for "strong and reputable" Chinese companies to invest in Saudi Arabia's ports, railways and infrastructure, the Chinese Xinhua news agency reported during a recent visit by Wen to Saudi Arabia.
    China and Saudi Arabia should keep deepening cooperation "in the face of changeable and complicated regional and international trends," he said, according to Xinhua.
    On Saturday (January 14), the state-run Saudi oil giant Aramco and Chinese companies finalized an initial agreement signed last year to develop a 400,000 barrel per day (bpd) refinery in Yanbu, on the kingdom's Red Sea coast.
    Aramco will hold a 62.5 percent stake in the joint venture formed to develop Yanbu Aramco Sinopec Refining Co (YASREF), and Sinopec will own the rest.
    In the first 11 months of 2011, top supplier Saudi Arabia shipped 45.5 million tons of crude to China, a rise of 12.9 percent over the same period in 2010, according to Chinese customs data. Angola and Iran were China's second and third biggest suppliers.
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