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Saudi officials have indicated they are willing to accept the Chinese yuan as payment for crude oil ahead of Premier Li Qiang’s visit to the kingdom on September 9. Saudi Arabia is seeking to strengthen ties with China as it seeks to diversify its economy away from oil.
In an interview in Hong Kong, Bandar Alkhorayef, the Saudi Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources, said the kingdom “is open to new ideas,” and would “try not to mix politics with trade,” a tacit reference to the hostility between China and the US, Saudi Arabia’s longtime ally.
China would like to internationalize the yuanwhich undermines the US dollar as the main global currency for international trade, especially after Russia, which is China’s largest source of crude oil, was shut out of the dollar system following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Meanwhile, China’s “significant investment“In Saudi Arabia, particularly in the areas of renewable energy and green infrastructure, this could help the Saudi economy diversify and move away from over-reliance on fossil fuels, analysts said.