The News
Saudi Arabian officials expressed willingness to accept the Chinese yuan as payment for crude oil ahead of Premier Li Qiang’s visit to the kingdom on Sept. 9, as Saudi seeks to deepen ties with China to help its economy diversify from oil.
In an interview in Hong Kong, Bandar Alkhorayef, the Saudi minister of industry and mineral resources, said that the kingdom “is open to new ideas,” and would “try not to mix politics with commerce,” a tacit reference to the antagonism between China and the US, Saudi’s long-standing ally.
China is keen to internationalize the yuan, which has been chipping away at the US dollar as the go-to global currency for international trading, especially after Russia — which is China’s largest source of crude oil — got locked out of the dollar system following its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, China’s “considerable investment” in Saudi Arabia, particularly in renewable energy and green infrastructure, could help diversify the Saudi economy away from its overreliance on fossil fuels, analysts said.
