The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2009-04-29 14:59

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the largest country of the Arabian Peninsula and the world's leading petroleum exporter. Its king is Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz.

The Kingdom is sometimes called "The Land of the Two Holy Mosques" in reference to Makkah and Medinah, the two holiest places in Islam.

Since 1990 when China established diplomatic relationship with Saudi Arabia, the two countries have witnessed rapid development in exchanges and cooperation in political, economic, cultural, educational, religious and other aspects. In recent years, their political mutual trust and exchanges of high-level visits have also been on a rise.

King Abdullah paid a state visit to China in January 2006, the first official overseas visit after his succession as king, and also the first visit to China by Saudi king since 1990. In the same year, Hu paid a return visit to Saudi Arabia in April.

The successful exchange of visits by the two heads of state has promoted bilateral pragmatic cooperation and boosted the strategic friendly cooperative relations between the two countries.

Saudi Arabia is the first leg of President Hu Jintao's five-nation visit this Februray and during his visit in Saudi Arabia, Hu held talks with King Abdullah to exchange views on furthering friendly cooperation as well as international and regional issues of common concern, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry. He also visited a cement production line constructed by Chinese enterprises in the Saudi capital of Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia is now China's largest trading partner in West Asia and North Africa. Two-way trade between the two countries hit $41.8 billion last year.

As the world's largest oil producer, Saudi Arabia is also the largest source of China's oil imports. Customs figures showed that China imported around 36 million tons of crude from the country in 2008, an increase of 38 percent year-on-year. China imported 179 million tons of crude oil in 2008, an increase of 9.6 percent from a year earlier. Imports accounted for 48 percent of the nation's total crude oil demand, 1.8 percentage points higher than the previous year.