Major Petrol Exporter Saudi Arabia Pens $5.6 Billion Deal to Develop EVs With China’s Human Horizons

At an Arab-China business conference in Riyadh over the weekend, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Investment signed a $5.6 billion deal with Shanghai-based electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer Human Horizons to jointly develop, manufacture, and sell EVs.

The deal was just one of more than 30 such investments penned during the conference to develop a variety of industries including producing smelter fuel, copper mining, renewable energy, agriculture, tourism, and healthcare, among others.

Started in 2017 by Ding Lei, the former president of Shanghai General Motors and former deputy governor of Pudong New District in the coastal metropolis, Human Horizons manufactures premium EVs under the HiPhi brand at an assembly plant in Yancheng. It sells several luxury sedans and SUVs in the Chinese domestic market, although it has plans to enter the European market this year as well.

The company is just one of several EV makers in China, where innovation and mass production have been spurred by the government’s push to eliminate cars powered solely by gasoline from Chinese roads by 2035. China is the world’s largest EV market, with EVs expected to make up 35% of all car sales in China this year, and could exceed 60% of global EV sales.

“Chinese companies now have a better chance of building infrastructure, assembling electric vehicles, running new-energy projects and developing technology businesses in Saudi Arabia now that the Middle Eastern country embarks on its Vision 2030 strategy,” Yan Jinglan, a professor of foreign studies at the East China University of Science and Technology in Shanghai, told Chinese media on Monday.

“Investment and production in the Kingdom will benefit some Chinese firms, particularly manufacturers who face heated competition at home,” Yan added.

“[This meeting is an opportunity ... to build a shared future towards a new, beneficial era for our peoples,” Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said in a news release.

The slew of deals comes as Riyadh looks both to diversify its economy away from petroleum exports as well as to find new partners beyond the Western nations on which it has relied since the mid-20th century. Last year, Saudi Arabia was the world’s largest exporter of crude oil, and the country sits on what are believed to be the world’s second-largest oil reserves.

Vision 2030 is a strategy for economic transformation by the end of the decade that was introduced by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the effective power behind the throne, as nations begin ambitious programs to wean themselves off fossil fuel-driven systems.

That has included trade and weapons deals with Russia and China, making peace with former rivals, and a push to join the BRICS bank operated by a group of five non-European industrializing nations that includes Russia and China as well as Brazil, India, and South Africa.

Saudi Arabia’s cooperation with China has expanded in recent years, with $3.5 billion worth of Chinese investment in the kingdom in 2021 and $23 billion across the Arab world. China was the kingdom’s largest trading partner last year, with bilateral trade amounting to $106.1 billion, according to bin Farhan - a 30% increase over the prior year.

In December, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the kingdom for the China-Arab Countries summit and the China-Gulf Cooperation Council summit. In addition, China helped broker a historic rapprochement between Riyadh and Tehran, the two most powerful states in the region, which have found themselves on the opposite side of numerous struggles ranging from Syria to Yemen.