Secretary-General of the Arab League Ahmed Aboul Gheit has stressed that the Arab-Chinese cooperation provides a valuable opportunity to attract Chinese technology, capital, and companies to invest in the Arab region, especially within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative and the global development initiative launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
This came in Aboul Gheit’s speech during the opening of the 10th session of the Arab-Chinese Business Conference in Riyadh on Sunday.
Aboul Gheit said that this event is becoming increasingly important in light of the negative repercussions of the global growth slowdown, the Russian-Ukrainian crisis, and the resulting effects on the technology, financial, energy and food markets.
He expressed his aspiration to hold rich discussions in the sessions of the conference to foresee the future of investment and business and explore the best ways to maximize the opportunities and potentials available to the Arab and Chinese sides.
“The investment opportunities in the Arab region are many and promising, but on the contrary, it has remained a weak magnet for foreign capital coming to it compared to other geographical regions, where the recorded figures have fluctuated between rising and falling due to the events and crises it witnessed,” Aboul Gheit noted.
He added that despite these data, there are positive indicators to overcome these obstacles in light of the ambitious development plans launched by the Arab countries. He pointed to the Arab League’s decades-long interest in improving the Arab investment climate and creating a unified Arab economic space, as well as its efforts to build partnerships with regional and international economic groupings, including this forum.
