On April 22, Chinese President Hu Jintao met in Riyadh with Saudi Arabian Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali Ibrahim Naimi, Chairman of the Council of Saudi Chambers of Commerce and Industry Abdulrahman Al-Rashed, President of the Saudi Arabia-China Friendship Association Abdul Rahman Al-Jeraisy and representatives from business people and held talks with them on expanding bilateral economic and trade cooperation.

After listening to opinions and proposals of Saudi Arabian business people on developing bilateral economic and trade cooperation, Hu said that since the establishment of diplomatic ties in 1990, economic and trade cooperation has made rapid progress with the trade volume increasing from only 300 million US dollars in 1990 to over16 billion US dollars in 2005. Saudi Arabia has become China's largest trading partner in West Asia and Africa. In recent years, cooperation between the businesses of the two countries in the areas of energy, engineering and communications has witnessed rapid development and bilateral economic and trade cooperation is progressing in broader areas and in a larger scale.

Hu pointed out that currently both economies have maintained sound development momentum. Economic growth in their respective countries has brought important opportunities for enhanced economic and trade cooperation. Both economies are highly complementary and there is a firm basis and huge potential for economic and trade cooperation. China is holding negotiations on the free trade zone with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) including Saudi Arabia and the multilateral cooperation within the framework of China-Arab States Cooperation Forum is also being advanced steadily. These offer even wider cooperative space for businesses of the two countries. The Chinese government would like to continue promoting bilateral cooperation in the areas of trade, investment, mineral resources, petroleum chemicals and infrastructure construction in a bid to push bilateral economic and trade cooperation to one new level after another. It is hoped that Saudi Arabian business people will seize opportunities to expand cooperation with Chinese enterprises and play a bigger role for advancing bilateral economic and trade cooperation.

Saudi Arabian business people enthusiastically responded to Hu's speech. They indicated that since China is an important pole of the world economy, while Saudi Arabia has become one of the top 20 economies in the world, bilateral economic and trade cooperation enjoys huge potential and sound prospect. The Saudi Arabian business community expects to establish strategic and global economic partnership with China, deepen economic, trade and investment exchanges and try to increase bilateral trade volume to 40 billion US dollars within 5 years. Saudi Arabia welcomes Chinese investors to invest there in infrastructure construction, energy, resources, industrial production and other areas.

On the same day, Hu visited the headquarters of Saudi Basic Industries Corporation, a famous enterprise in Saudi Arabia. This corporation is currently one of the world leading petroleum chemical companies and has actively conducted cooperation with China's related businesses in recent years. Hu indicated hope that cooperation between this corporation and China's related enterprises will score mutually beneficial and win-win results and contribute to development of the two economies.