Expo adds new momentum to China-Arab cooperation
CGTN
Between September 5 and 8, the China-Arab States Expo will take place in Yinchuan, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. It will be an opportunity to assess the extent of regional interests in China's Belt and Road Initiative.
During the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum in July 2018, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced 20 billion U.S. dollars in loans to help reconstruction and development in the Arab states. In 2018 alone, investments and construction contracts worth 25 billion U.S. dollars were agreed between Chinese companies and their partners in the Arab world, according to data from the American Enterprise Institute's China Global Investment Tracker.
As for where this new money is going, two countries account for two-thirds of these investments in 2018 and 2019: Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Between them, new investments and construction contracts since last year total almost 11 billion U.S. dollars, followed by the UAE with 2.67 billion U.S. dollars and Iraq with 2 billion U.S. dollars.
