The tenth Arab-China Business Conference held between June 11 and June 12 in Riyadh witnessed a further boost in the business relationship between China and the Arab world. During the event, Saudi Arabia signed a major investment deal of $5.6 billion with Chinese electric car maker–Human Horizons.
The collaboration will focus on developing, manufacturing and selling electric vehicles. The two-day conference witnessed around 3,500 government and business officials from China and Arab countries.
As per the statement, the agreement accounted for more than half of the more than $10 billion in investments signed on the first day of the conference in sectors spanning technology, renewable energy, agriculture, real estate, metals, tourism and healthcare, amongst others.
The statement revealed that Saudi Arabia plans to develop a domestic electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing industry. Human Horizons is already manufacturing electric vehicles under the HiPhi brand in China and developing autonomous driving technology.
The Saudi-China relationship has always been stronger in the oil sector. Still, recently, non-oil sectors are also seeing a push in investments as a part of Saudi’s agenda on diversification.
Chinese foreign direct investment into Arab markets stood at $23 billion in 2021, of which $3.5 billion was in Saudi Arabia, the statement said.
Moreover, earlier in March, Human Horizons expressed its plans to launch its premium HiPhi brand in some European markets this year as a part of its overseas expansion plans.
