Chinese President Xi Jinping made his first visit to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday after coming to power, and his talks with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud saw the signing of several crucial agreements, including reviving the Silk Route and building a nuclear reactor.
The two countries also agreed to cooperate on fighting terrorism, and also signed deals in several areas of industrial investments and scientific research.
"A total of 14 agreements including memorandums of understanding were also signed between Saudi Arabia and China at the palace," Fu Lihua, a spokeswoman of the Chinese embassy, told Arab News.
While Saudi Arabia is the biggest foreign supplier of crude oil to China, the latter is the biggest trading partner of the kingdom.
"I believe that my visit will be a friendly trip with fruitful achievements, thus conducive to lifting our cooperation in various fields to a new level and to elevating the collective cooperation between China and GCC (the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf) nations," the Chinese president said on his arrival in Riyadh, Xinhua reported.
An MoU to build a nuclear reactor was signed by Hashim Yamani -- president of King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy -- and Wang Shu Jin -- chairman of the Board of Directors of Chinese Nuclear Engineering Company, according to Saudi Gazette.
The two countries also signed an MoU for "strengthening mutual cooperation in the field of the Silk Route Economic Belt and the initiative of the Maritime Silk Route for the 21st century".
"We hope and trust that Saudi Arabia, located at the west crossroads of the Belt and Road, will become an important participant of, contributor to and beneficiary of this initiative," a diplomat was quoted as saying by Arab News.
Saudi Arabia was Jinping's first stop in his three-nation Middle East tour that will also take him to Egypt and Iran.
