Chinese president arrives in Egypt for state visit

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi(C front) greets Chinese President Xi Jinping (R front) upon his arrival in Cairo, Egypt, Jan 20, 2016. Xi Jinping arrived in Cairo Wednesday for a state visit to Egypt, the second leg of his three-nation Middle East tour. [Photo/Xinhua]

During his stay in Cairo, Xi will deliver a speech at the Arab League headquarters to make clear China's policy and propositions on promoting peace and development in the Middle East.

Prior to the visit, China issued its first official Arab Policy Paper, voicing hopes to bolster traditional friendly ties and all-round cooperation with Arab countries.

China and Arab states are both developing countries with their combined territory, population and economic aggregate accounting for one sixth, one fourth and one eighth of the world's total respectively.

In 2004, the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum was set up.

"There is no doubt that this mechanism has been tremendously successful. The forum contributed to increasing the volume of trade exchange between the two sides to a very high level," said Arab League Secretary-General Nabil al-Araby in an interview with Xinhua.

Today, Arab countries as a whole have become China's biggest supplier of crude oil and the 7th biggest trading partner, while China has become the second largest trading partner for Arab countries. The trade volume between China and Arab states exceeded 251 billion dollars in 2014.

China's Belt and Road Initiative and the initiative of establishing a "1+2+3" cooperation pattern, which means to take energy cooperation as the core, infrastructure construction and trade and investment facilitation as the two wings, and nuclear energy, space satellite and new energy as the three breakthroughs, are well received by Arab countries, according to China's Arab Policy Paper issued about a week ago.

Before Egypt, Xi paid a state visit to Saudi Arabia. His Middle East tour, his first overseas visit in 2016, will also take him to Iran.