On July 10, 2018, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi presided over the 8th Ministerial Meeting of the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum in Beijing. In his speech, Wang Yi said that the general trend of China's opening up to the west is in parallel with and also echoes the new trend of Arab states' eastward development. The overall layout of the joint building of the Belt and Road in the Middle East is rapidly taking shape.

Wang Yi said that China and Arab states are natural cooperation partners in the joint building of the Belt and Road. Four years ago, President Xi Jinping invited Arab states to jointly build the Belt and Road. Four years later, the practical cooperation between the two sides on this platform has been growing, and China has become the second largest trading partner of Arab states with direct investment in these countries exceeding 15 billion US dollars. The two sides have further strengthened the "1+2+3" cooperation framework with energy cooperation as the main axis, infrastructure construction and trade and investment facilitation as the two wings, and three high-tech fields of nuclear energy, space satellite and new energy as the breakthroughs, so as to advance the comprehensive implementation of the four action plans underpinned by stability facilitation, innovative cooperation, alignment of production capacity and the enhancement of friendship. As a result, the overall layout of the joint building of the Belt and Road in the Middle East is rapidly taking shape.