Saudi Arabia's Ajlan-and-Bros Holding looks forward to continuing the decades-long development in China, with promising future laying ahead for the two countries' future cooperation especially in new energy and construction.
Ajlan-and-Bros Group was formed in 1979 when it opened its first shop specializing in fabrics and garments. Over the course of four decades, it has evolved into a private conglomerate in Saudi Arabia.
With an established presence in more than 25 countries, the group is one of the largest companies producing traditional garments in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Middle East and North Africa region.
Vincent Yan, Group Senior Vice President and Head of China of Ajlan-and-Bros Holding, talked about his outlook for China-Saudi Arabia economic ties and expanding cooperation in new energy in an interview with China Global Television Network on the sidelines of the ongoing 2024 Qingdao Multinationals Summit, calling it a "tremendous success".
"The summit has been a tremendous success in the past four years and it's actually my second year attending the event. From Ajlan's perspective, we are a large international conglomerate with over 15,000 employees in more than 75 companies across more than 25 countries and regions. And China has always been our most important market in the past, and more importantly Shandong has been a very important market for us, where the family invested [in] the textile factories more than 20 years ago. So we always have this bonding with the Shandong region [province] and the companies here. From our perspective, the founders came to China in the 90's and invest locally. They were among the first Saudi businessmen here, and ever since Vision 20 [2030] came out, we established the China investment offices in 2017, and again we've acted as the pioneer helping the Chinese companies to go back to Saudi among the Middle East [players], where we can form joint ventures with them and help them and accelerate their success locally," he said.
Yan emphasized Saudi Arabia's commitment to environmental change, particularly in achieving carbon neutrality.
"Saudi [Arabia] is a country very much committed to the environmental change, and particularly [in terms of] the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality. So we have a very stringent schedule to stick to the new environmental energy provision. And from Ajlan's perspective, we are also very much committed in this area where we can leverage our investments, our resources, working with the companies around the globe to address these issues. And hopefully we can contribute more in the future," Yan said.
From an economic perspective, Yan noted that the synergies between Saudi and Chinese economies create ideal opportunities for collaboration.
"mean from the economic standpoint, the two economic bodies actually complement each other in a very ideal situation. We see the large state-owned infrastructure companies going to the kingdom where the mega projects or the giga projects taking [have taken] place. You know Saudi [Arabia] is effectively the largest construction market nowadays in the world. That was one example where the collaborations in the private sector as well as the public sectors can be perfectly complementing each other. And on the other side, that provides a good opportunity, a growth opportunity for Chinese companies to go overseas," he said.
China, Saudi Arabia complement each other in coordinated development: Ajlan-and-Bros
