This year marks the 10th anniversary of China’s Belt & Road Initiative, with the Middle East as an important node along it. In our own Jiangsu, Wuxi has of late been busy stepping up its increasingly-solid economic and trade exchanges with Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
From 13-17 August, an economic and trade delegation from Wuxi visited the two countries, promoting Wuxi through intensive interactions and practical negotiations.
That has come as the result of bilateral trade showing strong resilience and vitality. In 2022, Wuxi’s exports/imports to/from Saudi Arabia stood at US$1.11 billion, a year-on-year increase of 8.9 percent. Those with the UAE showed even more growth; 12.6 percent, for a total of US$660 million, as xhby.net reported this morning, 22 August.
Looking specifically at exports, those of Wuxi to Saudi Arabia between January and June of this year increased by 32.6 percent, while those to the UAE showed a growth of 16.2 percent.
As to the region as a whole, over the past 2 years, many Middle Eastern countries have actively adjusted their industrial policies to further promote economic transformation and diversified development. Middle Eastern countries are speeding up their journey eastward, in many cases embracing the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) along the way.
Hence the sending of a very strong signal to the Middle Eastern authorities in the form of the visiting delegation, to say without doubt that Wuxi means business. In essence, it’s the drawing of a new blueprint for mutual cooperation.
Touting their visiting of sister cities, matchmaking meetings, negotiations and recruiting of talent, the Wuxi delegation claimed their fruitful exchanges led to the signing of 34 projects with a total value of US$3.861 billion.
This is where a word of caution is necessary. Such signings of large US dollar-denominated projects with China are very often not legally binding. In the most extreme of cases, the money was simply not there in the first place.
But that which cannot be denied is the very real presence of the China-UAE Capacity Cooperation Demonstration Park.
There, the focus is on the development of new energy, machinery manufacturing, metals’ processing, biomedicine, fine chemicals, petroleum equipment and other industries; its low-cost advantage solidified by convenient logistics and transportation. An hour’s drive north of downtown Abu Dhabi, the Park is located in the Khalifa Industrial Zone adjacent to Khalifa Port.
There, under the scorching sun, the fluttering national flags of China and Afghanistan are particularly conspicuous. As China’s first such BRI park, the omnipresence of Wuxi is also easy to spot; it’s Jiangsu playing the leading role in the very establishment of the China-UAE Capacity Cooperation Demonstration Park.
