China’s National Energy Administration announced on June 12 that from May 28 to June 5, Director Zhang Jianhua was invited to lead a delegation to visit the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to implement the outcomes of the first China-Arab States and China Mediterranean Summit, strengthen policy alignment with relevant countries, and promote practical energy cooperation.
During his stay in the United Arab Emirates, Zhang Jianhua met with Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Mazrouei, Director General of the Energy Authority of ABU Dhabi Malal and President of the Afghan Nuclear Energy Company Hammadi, exchanging in-depth views on China-Arab cooperation in oil and gas, photovoltaic, hydrogen and nuclear energy.
During his stay in Saudi Arabia, he met with Saudi Energy Minister Abdul Aziz and co-chaired the China-Saudi Arabia Energy Cooperation meeting, agreed to strengthen dialogue on energy mechanisms, and reached consensus on promoting practical cooperation in oil and gas, hydrogen energy, civil nuclear energy and other fields. They met with President and CEO of Saudi Aramco Nasser, Vice President of the Saudi Public Investment Fund Humied and Chairman of the Saudi International Power and Water Company ABU Nayan to further enhance practical cooperation in oil and gas, renewable energy, hydrogen energy and other fields.
During his stay in Qatar, he met with Deputy Emir Abdullah Hamad. The two sides spoke highly of the fruitful achievements of China-Qatar energy cooperation and indicated that under the strategic guidance of the leaders of the two countries, they will continue to deepen practical cooperation and achieve mutual benefit and win-win results. Zhang also met with Saad bin Sharida Al Kaabi, Minister of State for Energy Affairs and President and CEO of Qatar, agreeing to jointly support companies of both sides in deepening natural gas trade and upstream cooperation.
During the visit, Zhang Jianhua also presided over symposiums of Chinese enterprises in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia respectively to learn about their local business development and key cooperation projects, and conducted field research on key cooperation projects in oil and gas, new energy and other fields between Chinese enterprises and relevant countries.
On June 11, the first day of the 10th Entrepreneur Conference of the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum, China and Arab states signed 30 investment agreements with a total value of 37.5 billion Saudi riyals (more than 10 billion US dollars) in the fields of technology, renewable energy, agriculture, real estate, minerals, logistics, tourism and health.