This photo taken on Sept. 21, 2023 shows an exterior view of the venue for the sixth China-Arab States Expo in Yinchuan, northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. (Xinhua/Feng Kaihua)

In recent years, China and the Arab world have expanded cooperation from more traditional sectors to include aviation, aerospace and the digital economy.

YINCHUAN, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) — “China has a huge consumer market and offers great opportunities (for the expansion of our business). I hope I can find partners and establish sales channels here,” said Abdullah A Alrebdi, a participant in the ongoing sixth China-Arab States Expo.

It is the first time for Alrebdi, chairman of the board of directors of the Saudi firm Palma Dates, to attend the four-day event that opened on Thursday in Yinchuan, capital of northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. His company owns 23 date palm farms, which produce 80,000 tons of date palms annually.

Alrebdi is among the more than 400,000 participants in the expo over the past 10 years. The expo, a biennial event first held in 2013, has since developed into a vital platform for China and the Arab states to promote pragmatic cooperation.

The past decade has witnessed substantial economic and trade cooperation growth between China and Arab states at the expo. China is now the largest trading partner of the Arab states, with last year’s trade volume almost doubling from the 2012 level to 431.4 billion U.S. dollars.

The expo has attracted more than 6,000 enterprises from 112 countries and regions since 2013, and more than 1,200 deals in modern agriculture, high technology and biomedicine have been clinched.

This photo taken on Sept. 21, 2023 shows the smart meteorology exhibition area at the sixth China-Arab States Expo in Yinchuan, northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. (Xinhua/Feng Kaihua)

In recent years, China and the Arab world have expanded cooperation from more traditional sectors to include aviation, aerospace and the digital economy. They have fostered new growth resources involving green and low-carbon development, health and medical services, and investment and finance.

This year’s expo features a forum on meteorological cooperation for the first time, attracting meteorological officials from 12 Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Mauritania, Syria and Egypt.

Cross-border e-commerce is one of the burgeoning new frontiers for China-Arab states cooperation. Yang Wanlong, a Chinese businessman, outlined his plan for cooperating with Arab customers in the e-commerce sector at a booth he rented at this year’s expo.

After observing the potential of the market of Arab states at the fifth China-Arab States Expo, the young businessman decided to attend the expo again this year to promote his company’s e-commerce platform in Arab countries.

A guest (R) learns about a wind power generation project at the sixth China-Arab States Expo in Yinchuan, northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, Sept. 22, 2023. (Xinhua/Feng Kaihua)

Yang expressed his hope that Arab consumers will soon be able to buy low-cost, high-quality Chinese goods simply by placing online orders as cross-border e-commerce between China and the Arab states develops.

The investment promotion by the China-Arab States Expo catalyzed Malaysian company DXN Holdings BHD’s decision to establish its Chinese subsidiary DXN Corporation (Ningxia) Co. in Ningxia. Today, the company that produces healthy food supplements has a booth at the expo where various goods are on display, including instant noodles, milk tea and coffee.

“The expo offers us a rare opportunity to fully display our products and cooperate with Arab countries,” said Du Weijun, an employee of the company.

This year’s event drew representatives from 14 governments, 13 international and regional organizations, foreign institutions in China, and over 60 foreign business associations and enterprises.  ■