Chinese language President Xi Jinping will arrive in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday for a three-day go to, his first to the world’s largest crude oil exporter since 2016, Saudi state media reported on Tuesday.
The go to will embody a bilateral summit chaired by Saudi King Salman and attended by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the dominion’s de facto ruler, the official Saudi Press Company reported.
Xi, head of the world’s second largest financial system, will even attend a summit with rulers from the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council and talks convening leaders from elsewhere within the Center East, the state information company stated.
The Chinese language chief’s arrival coincides with heightened tensions between Saudi Arabia and the US over points starting from power coverage to regional safety and human rights.
The most recent blow to that decades-old partnership got here in October when the OPEC oil bloc agreed to chop manufacturing by two million barrels a day, a transfer the White Home stated amounted to “aligning with Russia” on the battle in Ukraine.
On Sunday, OPEC opted to maintain these cuts in place.
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China is Saudi Arabia’s largest buyer for crude oil, buying roughly 1 / 4 of Saudi oil exports.
Past power, analysts say leaders from the 2 international locations are anticipated to debate potential offers that would see Chinese language corporations change into extra deeply concerned in mega-projects which might be central to Prince Mohammed’s imaginative and prescient of diversifying the Saudi financial system away from oil.
These tasks embody a futuristic $500 billion megacity often known as NEOM, a so-called cognitive metropolis that can rely closely on facial recognition and surveillance know-how.
Xi final visited Saudi Arabia in 2016, the 12 months earlier than Prince Mohammed turned first in line to the throne, on a visit that additionally featured stops in Egypt and Saudi rival Iran.
Prince Mohammed visited China and met with Xi on an Asia tour in 2019.