Why are Chinese investors and startups so excited about Saudi Arabia?

Why are Chinese investors and startups so excited about Saudi Arabia?

Over the past decade, technological advancements have shifted from the powerhouses of the US and Europe to China and India, where investments in startups have grown in tandem with investment in research and development (R&D).

For many Chinese companies that expanded westward to South and South East Asia, the natural next step is the Middle East and North Africa (Mena). Efforts to bridge the two regions began to take hold before the pandemic but slowed down as China shut itself off from the rest of the world. Now however, the country’s ongoing zero-Covid policy has provided an impetus for Chinese startups to begin exploring markets beyond their own. 

In 2018, a group of prominent Chinese investors and businessmen, spearheaded by Alibaba founder Jack Ma, came together to launch the Electronic World Trading Platform (eWTP), an investment platform with a $600 million fund to facilitate the development of global trade and the digital economy through the development of global digital economy infrastructure and the adoption of policies to promote best practices, such as cross-border free trade zones and SME e-commerce pilot projects. 

A year later, the eWTP Arabia Capital (eWTPA) was set up in Saudi Arabia, backed by the Public Investment Fund (PIF) with