On the morning of April 24, 2006, after successfully concluding his state visit to Saudi Arabia, Chinese President Hu Jintao left its eastern city of Dammam for Morocco for a visit.

During his visit to Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia, President Hu held talks with King Abdullah. Both sides exchanged in-depth views on pushing for continuous development of bilateral strategic friendly cooperative relations, as well as international and regional issues of common interest.

Hu also addressed the Consultative Council of Saudi Arabia, comprehensively expounding China's policies and proposals on developing ties with Arab states in the new century.

On the afternoon of April 23, Hu arrived in Dammam for a visit from Riyadh by special plane.

Since the establishment of diplomatic ties in 1990, bilateral relations have witnessed smooth development. The two countries share identical or similar views on many major international and regional issues and have maintained coordination and cooperation in international affairs. In the economic area, Saudi Arabia is China's largest trading partner in West Asia and North Africa and last year bilateral trade volume reached 16 billion US dollars.

Saudi Arabia is the second leg of Hu's current five-nation tour. Prior to that, he has already visited the United States. Besides Morocco, Hu will also visit Nigeria and Kenya.