Ajlan, deputy president of the Saudi-Chinese Council called on the Saudi Arabian General Investments Authority to hold negotiations with the Chinese government to create a joint organization to attract Chinese companies to invest in the Kingdom. Al-Ajlan, who stressed the importance of establishing the organization, also emphasized the importance of opening direct dialogue and a center with the Chinese government and companies to invite them to work directly and more widely in the Saudi economy, and the need for the Authority to facilitate matters for them. Al-Ajlan, who said creation of the organization would motivate many Chinese companies to invest in the Kingdom, pointed out that the most prominent problems facing Chinese companies are the big distance between the two countries and the cultural differences. Al-Ajlan said the licenses granted to Chinese companies by the Authority were worth $8.5 billion, but the actual investment did not exceed $400 million. The trade exchange between the Kingdom and China reached $39 billion at the end of last year, he added. Preliminary economic estimates indicate that the targeted volume of trade exchange between the two countries is nearly $65 billion during the next four years, he said. He said a reception party organized by the Liaison Office for Chinese Companies, which included Yang Hong Lin, the Chinese ambassador in the Kingdom, and Abdul Rahman Al-Jeraisy, president of the Saudi-Chinese Business Council, reviewed relations between the two countries, the great developments during the last 20 years as a result of the strategic friendship between China and the Kingdom and plans to develop these relations in the coming period.
