China, Middle East set to unleash enormous cooperation potential

BEIJING - With the further dovetailing of development strategies of China and the Middle East, enormous cooperation potential will be unleashed, thanks to Chinese President Xi Jinping's ongoing trip.

Xi's three-nation tour, which has taken him to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran, has helped further link China's westward opening strategy and its Middle East partners' looking-east policy, in a move that has lifted bilateral ties to a new high and brought vitality to their interaction.

As the two sides are attuning their needs when integrating their development blueprints, a pattern that promotes cooperation in such areas as energy, production capacity and new and high technology is taking shape.

ENERGY COOPERATION BIGGER THAN JUST OIL

Accounting for around one third of the current global oil output, the Middle East has played a key role in the international energy supply.

Recent years have seen a vigorous implementation of China's economic adjustment and the Middle East's endeavor to build new engines for its energy sector.

The strong complementarity of China and the Middle East in economy and trade has enabled the world's second-largest economy and the oil-rich region to forge stable ties in their strategic energy cooperation.

During Xi's Tuesday meeting with Abdul Latif bin Rashid Al Zayani, secretary-general of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC), the Chinese leader said China is willing to carry out comprehensive energy cooperation with the GCC countries and offer a long-term, stable and reliable energy market for the six-member bloc.

Strengthening energy cooperation will promote the development of both China and the Middle East and diversify their economic exchanges, said Wang Qiong, a research fellow with the Institute of West Asian and African Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).

So far, the two sides have set up multiple multilateral frameworks, including the China-Arab Energy Cooperation Conference and the China-GCC Strategic Dialogue.