Assistant Minister of Commerce Chen Jian attended and addressed the Sino-Arab Cooperation Forum---2006 Sino-Arab Petrochemical Cooperation Seminar in Xiamen on Sept. 8.

Mr. Chen Jian said that China and Arabian countries had friendly and traditional relations, 2006 marked the 50the anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations between China and Arabian countries. Within the 50 years, China and Arabian countries were trustful to each other on politics, and mutually benefited on economy. Scale and level of bilateral trade and economic cooperation were greatly improved, and the bilateral trade in 2005 exceeded US$50 billion, up by 40% compared with that in 2004, on the other hand, Arabian countries became the 8th trading partner and biggest supplying places of China.

In recent years, Sino-Arab cooperation in investment made faster development: investment of Arabian countries to China was close to US$140 million, up by 6% on a year-on-year basis, covering areas of light industry, stone, construction material and real estate, on the other hand, investment from China to Arabian countries reached about US$1 billion with an increase rate of 19%, covering fields of resource exploitation, commerce and trade, production and processing.

Mr. Chen Jian said that Sino-Arab petrochemical cooperation played an important role in bilateral trade and economic relations, facing crucial opportunities of development and having extensive cooperation prospect.

Firstly, Arabian countries became the important petrochemical cooperation partners of China, and the two parts possessed favorable foundation for petrochemical cooperation.

In trade, the bilateral trade of petrochemical products amounted to US$6.38 billion, accounting for 12.5% of total bilateral trade.

In investment, the bilateral petrochemical cooperation also made outstanding achievements. In 1985, China, Tunis and Kuwait invested and established together the Sino-Arab Chemical Fertilizers Co.,Ltd in Qinghuangdao with annual production capacity of 1.4 million tons.

Besides, China's petrochemical technology and equipment were recognized by Arabian petrochemical enterprises. Chinese petrochemical enterprises actively took part in the construction of petrochemical industry of Arabian countries.

Secondly, petrochemical industry of both China and Arabian countries entered into a stage of rapid development, now Sino-Arab petrochemical cooperation confronted with new opportunities.

On the one hand, China's petrochemical industry was the industry to be developed firstly in the Eleventh Five-Year Planning. Total sales revenue of Chinese petroleum and petrochemical industry in 2005 amounted to US$400 billion, up by 153.4% compared with 2000 and the annual increase rate hit 20.4%, meanwhile, the innovation capacity of Chinese enterprises improved step by step, private enterprises grew with a high speed and chemical industrial parks presented a momentum of flourish development.

On the other hand, petrochemical industries of many Arabian countries were at high levels such as SABIC, its annual production capacity amounted to over 6 million tons and sales revenue accounted for 18% of total of chemical products worldwide, ranking No. 11 among global chemical enterprises. Meanwhile, petrochemical industry was an important industry to carry out diversified strategies and major field to attract foreign investment for many Arabian countries.

High-speed development of petrochemical industry in China and Arabian countries brought stronger requirement for bilateral cooperation day by day. The two sides confronted with new chances of cooperation in capital, technology and equipment and could learn from each other the talents training and management experiences.

Regarding to Sino-Arab petrochemical cooperation in the future, Mr. Chen Jian put forward the following suggestions:

In the aspect of government, relative departments of both Chinese and Arabian governments should maintain improving the cooperation mechanism to provide political convenience for bilateral cooperation, meanwhile, use better the investment seminars under the Sino-Arab Cooperation Forum to strive to hold every year the seminars with various topics during the China International Fair for Investment and Trade.

As for enterprises, state-owned and private enterprises of the two sides should actively seek after new cooperation forms and fields, should enhance technical communication and training cooperation, increase trade exchanges of petrochemical products and equipment, enlarge technology service and project contracting and find out investment opportunities from various procedures of petrochemical industrial chain, especially from big projects, manufacturing and processing procedure.

As far as chambers of commerce and industry associations are concerned, China and Arabian countries should build up the communication mechanism as soon as possible, strengthen the high-efficiency communication on industrial policies, industrial and technology development and project information to provide technical reference to the decision of government departments, and to offer service of exhibition, information and consultation to enterprises' cooperation so as to assist them to solve problems in the process of cooperation.

HE Dr. Awad Ahmed Al-jaz, Sudan Minister of Energy and Mining, took part in the Seminar.

(Source: Network Center of MOFCOM)