A view of Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia Photo: VCG

China's housing ministry has proposed to establish a joint working group with its Saudi Arabia counterpart to promote bilateral cooperation in housing and new cities and districts construction, further improving the housing and urban-rural development levels of both countries, as well as sharing experience and confronting challenges together.  

Ni Hong, Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, stated that China is ready to carry out cooperation in the construction of houses, new cities and new districts under the framework of bilateral cooperation documents to implement the consensus reached by the two heads of state. Ni made the remarks during a meeting with Saudi Arabian Minister of Municipal Rural Affairs and Housing Majed bin Abdullah Al-Hogail during his recent visit to Saudi Arabia, China Construction News, media under the ministry, reported on Thursday.

Al-Hogail emphasized that China-Saudi Arabia cooperation has vast prospects as the kingdom is vigorously promoting housing and urban development under its Vision 2030. He said that he hoped to deepen exchanges and cooperation in the field of housing and urban-rural construction with China, and achieve mutual benefits and win-win outcomes.

"As Saudi Arabia is committed to reaching the goals of the Vision 2030 economic diversification plan to move away from oil dependency, the kingdom believed that China's advancements in infrastructure construction efficiency and quality are trustworthy," Zhou Rong, a senior researcher at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China, told the Global Times on Thursday. 

Saudi Arabia in 2017 announced an ambitious $500 billion futuristic infrastructure project called NEOM under its Vision 2030, with multiple Chinese companies participating in construction, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

An adit tunnel project of NEOM, built by China Railway Construction Corp, was completed and delivered in May, signifying the end of the first project undertaken by a Chinese enterprise in the mega project, Xinhua reported. 

"Aside from construction capability, China also has rich experience in megacity planning and management in supporting Saudi Arabia's talent attraction plan for its city construction," said Zhou, adding that China-Saudi Arabia cooperation will be a demonstration for surrounding countries such as Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. 

Zhou also said that Chinese companies will be able to undertake Saudi Arabia's construction talent training system as well as localized construction material manufacturing lines.