Recently, the headquarters of China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC) welcomed a delegation led by Sabah Mutlaq, the chairman of Saudi Arabia's Alphana Engineering Group, and met with Sun Yongcai, the chairman of CRRC. This is not an ordinary business visit. Alphana is the largest power engineering contractor in Saudi Arabia, with over 400 projects and an investment scale of over 25 billion US dollars; CRRC is the world's largest manufacturer of rail transit equipment and has been deeply involved in Saudi Arabia for over a decade. The two giants are upgrading their cooperation from business exchange to long-term strategic collaboration across multiple fields and industry chains.

Alphana's hardcore industrial base

Alphana Engineering Group's business covers nearly 30 countries, with a deep layout in multiple tracks such as electricity, smart grids, wind and solar new energy, energy storage, green hydrogen, seawater desalination, industrial infrastructure, and data centers. The group owns Riyadh Alphana Industrial City, a leading integrated electrical manufacturing base in the Middle East, with 16 specialized chemical plants and the ability to independently produce transformers, DC converters, and high and low voltage complete sets of equipment. The group has been ranked among the top five engineering contractors in Saudi Arabia for several consecutive years and is one of the most influential local engineering companies in Saudi Arabia. CRRC Zhuzhou has been supplying core power components to it for a long time, and both parties have a solid foundation for supply and demand cooperation.

Four major directions locked in strategic synergy

Both parties have reached a comprehensive strategic cooperation consensus, clarifying four major directions: establishing a high-level normalized communication mechanism to synchronize project bidding and industrial policies; The joint bidding body for the dual line construction of rail transit and new energy power electronics will participate in Saudi Arabia's national level project; Based on the planning and construction of the Alfana Industrial City, a local chemical capital manufacturing base will be established, with priority given to supplying products to Saudi Arabia and exporting them to the Gulf and North Africa; Collaborate to expand business in all Gulf countries. Both sides have preliminarily formulated a plan for high-level mutual visits. Sun Yongcai will go to Saudi Arabia to inspect the detailed construction plan of the industrial city, and Alfana executives will also visit the CRRC industrial base for research. Keywords: the Belt and Road news network, new energy, railway

Localized manufacturing accelerates the integration of production capacity between China and Saudi Arabia

The core of this cooperation is not selling equipment but building a joint factory. Saudi Arabia's 2030 Vision is vigorously promoting its industrial localization strategy, and companies that are the first to complete localized production capacity layout are expected to obtain better long-term market access conditions. The construction of Saudi Arabia's rail transit has entered a stage of centralized release, with considerable market growth potential from the Mecca Metro to the Qidia High Speed Railway, from the Riyadh Monorail to the national passenger railway. If the joint venture manufacturing base is successfully established, China's high-end manufacturing going global will shift from selling products to building an ecosystem, and China Saudi Arabia capacity cooperation will enter a new stage of channel, technology, and localization.Editor/Gao Xue