On April 23, 2006, after addressing the Consultative Council of Saudi Arabia, Chinese President Hu Jintao met with its Chairman Saleh Abdullah Homaid. Both sides held talks in a cordial atmosphere.

Hu indicated that China attaches great importance to developing bilateral strategic friendly cooperative relations and would like to join hands with Saudi Arabia to further deepen friendship and expand cooperation. The National People's Congress (NPC) of China has always maintained sound cooperative ties with the Consultative Council of Saudi Arabia and it is hoped that the two parliaments will further strengthen exchanges and cooperation and make greater contributions to pushing for development of bilateral ties.

Hu pointed out that diversity is a fundamental feature of civilizations of mankind and thanks to this feature the world becomes colorful. Only based on diversity of civilizations and development modes, can development of human society have inexhaustible innovative vitality. Different civilizations should respect each other, treat each other as equals, learn from each other's strong points to close the gap and seek common ground while reserving differences in a bid to build up mutual understanding through dialogue and pursue common development through exchanges.

Hu emphasized that both the Chinese and Arab nations have created splendid histories and civilizations. In history both civilizations have promoted common development through mutual exchanges and played an important role for development and progress of world civilizations. China and Arab states should build up mutual understanding and friendship between their people and promote development of Sino-Arab ties through various forms of dialogue and exchanges so that these two ancient civilizations will be full of vigor and vitality and make new contributions to pushing for progress of human civilizations and building a harmonious world.

Homaid indicated that Hu's profound speech just now has sent out a strong message on building a harmonious world to the people of Saudi Arabia, Arab states and the whole world at large. China holds an important status in the international pattern, while Saudi Arabia has significant influence in the Arab world. Saudi Arabia hopes to establish solid relations with China and jointly make positive contributions to promoting exchanges among different civilizations and building a harmonious world.

State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan attended the meeting.

On the same day, Hu also met with the staff of the Chinese Embassy in Saudi Arabia and representatives from Chinese-funded institutions and overseas Chinese.