China and Arab nations pledge to boost trade

Photo: China and Arab nations pledge to boost trade

Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing signed a two-year plan for the Sino-Arab Cooperation Forum with Secretary General Amr Moussa of the Arab League.

Delegates to the meeting also signed an environmental protection plan and a memorandum of understanding for a meeting between Chinese and Arab entrepreneurs. No details were released.

The two-day forum was taking place as China scrambles to secure energy for its booming economy, which expanded by 9.9 percent last year and is one of the world's top oil importers.

China imported 55.36 million tons of crude oil from Arab countries in 2005, 43.7 percent of its total oil import, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Xinhua also said that the action plan for Sino-Arab cooperation between 2006 and 2008 signed by Li and Moussa included plans for a bilateral meeting to focus on oil issues and "a dialogue mechanism" to further promote energy cooperation between the two sides.

The forum also made a pledge to further cooperation on anti-terror efforts, Xinhua said.

China's trade with the Arab world has grown tenfold in the past decade, to US$51.3 billion (euro40 billion), about 40 percent of which is estimated to be oil related.

Trade volumes between the two sides could double to as much as US$100 billion in 2010 by facilitating the free flow of goods, capital, technology and service, State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan said Wednesday.

Moussa said current trade volumes were "just a beginning" and that the two sides might even reach their US$100 billion trade target within "two to three years" if they maintained recent growth levels, the AP reports.