Day: December 10, 2022

BEIJING, Dec. 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China-Arab cooperation in the fields of infrastructure, space and health has been continuously developed in a sustainable manner.

China has vowed to accelerate the development of the China-Arab inter-governmental science and technology innovation cooperation mechanism.

The country will implement more partner projects, and continue to improve the sci-tech capabilities of Arab states.

Lusail Stadium, the main venue for this year’s World Cup, was constructed with China Railway Construction Corporation as the main contractor.

Shaped like a date palm bowl or an enamel lantern, the stadium will host the World Cup final, scheduled for December 18.

It is the first time a Chinese company has built a World Cup venue, which is featured on the new 10-riyal banknote of Qatar.

“The Lusail Stadium is by far the world’s largest, most advanced and most complex professional football stadium built to FIFA standards,” Li Chongyang, head of the Chinese side of the engineering team, told the China Media Group (CMG).

Lusail Stadium, which can host 80,000 spectators, shows Chinese enterprises’ technical capabilities and service levels, Hassan Al Thawadi, secretary general of the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy for 2022 FIFA World Cup, told CGTN.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) helped China with the clinical trial of its COVID-19 vaccine and later established localized production lines.

In 2020, the UAE approved registration of an inactivated vaccine developed by China’s Sinopharm.

“The UAE was the first country to approach a Chinese vaccine,” Ali Obaid Al Dhaheri, the UAE ambassador to China, told CGTN. “The production facility can produce 200 million doses per year. The vaccine is not for the UAE, not for China, but for the rest of the world.”

China is pushing forward space cooperation with countries participating in the BRI.

China and Saudi Arabia signed a memorandum of understanding on March 16, 2017, sharing the scientific data in space cooperation.

The two then jointly unveiled three lunar images acquired through cooperation on the relay satellite mission for Chang’e-4 lunar probe, according to the China National Space Administration.

In 2018, the China-Arab States BDS/GNSS Center, the first overseas center for China’s indigenous Beidou Navigation Satellite System (BDS), was inaugurated in Tunisia. BDS-related cooperation expanded to more Arab states in 2021 as they agreed to implement more pilot projects.

In addition, Kuwait’s national satellite team looks forward to cooperating with China.

Link: https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-12-10/Infrastructure-vaccines-and-space-China-Arab-sci-tech-cooperation-1fDKJNs4QuI/index.html

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BEIJING, Dec. 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — As the China-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Summit brought the leaders of China and the GCC countries together for the first time in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the traditional friendship between the two sides has been carried forward and the strategicness of the relations has been further enriched.

China and the GCC countries are natural partners for cooperation, said Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday in his speech at the summit, calling on the two sides to be partners in promoting unity, development, security and civilizations.

The summit decided to establish and strengthen the strategic partnership between China and the GCC countries.

Founded in 1981, the GCC has six member countries: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The GCC countries are important partners for China in its cooperation with the Middle East. China has maintained contact with the GCC ever since its establishment.

In his speech, Xi hailed the achievements made between the two sides during the past years, saying that China and the GCC countries should continue the traditional friendship and take the strategic partnership as an opportunity to enrich the strategic connotation of China-GCC relations.

He said the two sides should be partners in promoting unity, strengthen political mutual trust and firmly support each other’s core interests.

The two sides should synergize development strategies, build security together and learn from each other’s fine cultural achievements, he added.

The Chinese president proposed five major areas for cooperation between China and the GCC countries in the next three to five years: energy, finance and investment, innovation and new technologies, aerospace, and language and cultures.

China will continue to import more crude oil and liquefied natural gas from the GCC countries, establish a working mechanism for bilateral investment and economic cooperation and deepen digital currency cooperation, as well as build a big data and cloud computing center with the GCC countries, according to the president.

According to data from China’s General Administration of Customs, China remains the GCC’s largest trading partner and largest export market for petrochemical products. Bilateral trade exceeded $230 billion in 2021, when Chinese fossil fuel imports from Saudi Arabia, Oman and the UAE reached $44.9 billion, $25.4 billion and $21.3 billion, respectively.

In recent years, the friendly relations between the two sides have consistently developed. On September 19, for instance, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with the GCC foreign ministers as a group on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. During the meeting, the two sides agreed to “make joint efforts to reach common ground on the China-GCC Free Trade Agreement (FTA) at an early date, so as to release positive signals and to help each other achieve better development.”

Leaders from other GCC countries spoke highly of GCC-China relations and the summit, saying that they believe the first summit is a grand gathering in the history of GCC-China relations and an important milestone.

The GCC countries firmly support the one-China principle and are ready to work with China to implement the outcomes of the summit, deepen bilateral cooperation in key areas and bring more benefits to the two peoples.

The summit also issued a joint statement and adopted the 2023-2027 action plan for the strategic dialogue between China and the GCC countries.

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-12-09/Xi-Jinping-says-China-GCC-states-natural-partners-for-cooperation-1fCZREQ2L1m/index.html

BEIJING, Dec. 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — The Arab countries located at the junction of Asia, Africa and Europe are universally renowned for their unique geographic location and abundant energy reserves.

Energy cooperation, one of the main components of the China-Arab partnership, has steadily developed in recent years, with a deepening relationship born of numerous win-win achievements.

Seventy percent of China’s oil supplies are imported. In 2021, China imported 265 million tonnes of crude oil from Arab countries, accounting for 51.6 percent of the national total.

To date, more than 200 large-scale cooperation projects in energy and infrastructure have been implemented, benefiting nearly 2 billion people.

The Middle East has the highest sunlight exposure rate in the world, with Saudi Arabia being the world’s largest wind photovoltaic base.

The countries in the region are pursuing energy diversification through large-scale new energy projects. Last March, Saudi Arabia reaffirmed its five-year commitment to convert half of its total energy to renewable sources by 2030.

This could lay a solid foundation for China-Middle East cooperation, as Chinese companies dominate key solar panel manufacturing stages.

China is Saudi Arabia’s largest trading partner, and the latter is China’s most important energy supplier and largest trading partner in the West Asia and Africa region.

According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, trade between the two reached $87.31 billion in 2021, up 30.1 percent year on year.

In the energy field, Qatar is the world’s top Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) exporter.

While all eyes were on the opening ceremony of World Cup Qatar 2022 on November 21, Chinese energy giant Sinopec and QatarEnergy were signing a 27-year LNG deal through which QatarEnergy will provide 4 million tonnes of LNG to Sinopec annually.

The deal is the first long-term sales and purchase agreement under Qatar’s North Field East Project, which is expected to enter production in 2026.

Sinopec Chairman Ma Yongsheng said that the deal will help China to meet its natural gas demand and optimize the country’s energy structure. The Qatari side is also satisfied with the long-term deal.

Qatar is a country where “water is more expensive than oil.”

With support from China, the country built 15 super-large water storage tanks across the country to ensure water safety during the World Cup.

Built by a Chinese company, Qatar’s 800-megawatt Al Kharsaah solar power plant is one of the largest in the Middle East, increasing the share of renewable energy in Qatar’s energy mix and contributing to a “green World Cup.”

Link: https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-12-09/Deepening-China-Arab-energy-cooperation-born-of-win-win-scenarios-1fCTLWmLTSE/index.html

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