April 22, 2006	Saturday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 23, 1427

SHANGHAI, April 21: Chinese President Hu Jintao will head to Saudi Arabia and Africa this week aiming to secure energy deals to feed the country’s roaring economy while deepening its commercial clout in the region.

China’s quest for petroleum promises to be the focus of Mr Hu’s agenda but the rising Asian power will also be keen to pry open new markets for its booming factories producing everything from shoes and cars to textiles and TV sets.

“I believe energy cooperation is an important domain of... (our) cooperation but it is not the only domain,” foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said of the four-nation tour that includes Morocco, Nigeria before ending on April 28 in Kenya.

After his first official trip to Washington, Mr Hu will mark a historic visit to Saudi Arabia from April 22 to 24, with bilateral meetings centered on cementing a stronger energy partnership with the oil-rich kingdom.

“Hu Jintao must consolidate the supply of oil for China’s developing economy — he has to do that, it’s an obligation on his part,” said Garth Shelton, a China relations specialist at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.

As the world’s second biggest oil consumer after the United States, China is scouring the globe for more crude to fuel ensure it unprecedented economic transformation continues.

Saudi, the globe’s largest oil exporter, is itself keen to expand beyond its traditional markets of Europe and the US. It contributed about 20 million tons of the 130 million tons of crude China imported last year.

Mr Hu’s stop in Saudi Arabia comes only three months after King Abdullah made an inaugural trip to Beijing in January, the first by a Saudi monarch since diplomatic relations were established in 1990.

During his visit, King Abudullah oversaw the signing of five economic deals, including an energy framework agreement that the two sides will flesh out in Riyadh, said Zhang Xiaodong, director of the Africa and West Asia Institute at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

“Saudi Arabia is trying to seek a stable importer while China is also seeking a supplier, so there are a lot on energy deals to expect from the trip,” said Zhang.

The relationship with Riyadh is also geopolitically important to Beijing given “Saudi Arabia’s weight in Islamic circles,” said Barry Sautman, a Sino-African relations expert at the University of Science and Technology of Hong Kong.

The round of petroleum diplomacy is sure to be watched closely by the US, as some in Washington worry that Asia’s second-largest economy aims to challenge US influence in the region.

For decades China has played on its solidarity with developing African nations for influence, but in recent years Beijing has looked to the continent as a source of energy and natural resources as well as a growing market for its goods.—AFP