On May 12, 2016 local time, Foreign Minister Wang Yi attended the opening ceremony of the 7th ministerial meeting of the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum in Doha.

Wang Yi expressed that as an important passage for business and trade interaction and a key link of cultural exchanges, the Silk Road has also promoted communication and exchanges of many religions, and deeply influenced the civilization development of both the Chinese and Arab nations in history. Today, while jointly building the Belt and Road, China and Arab countries should integrate China's trend of opening up to the west and the "Look-East" policy of Arab countries, give play to the two advantages of industrial and resource complementarity, and make good use of industrialization and civilization dialogue, so as to write a new chapter of China-Arab traditional friendship.

First, both sides should boost connectivity in both land and sea concurrently. Arab countries are located in the west intersection of the Belt and Road. In the past, camels and sailing boats marked China-Arab exchanges. Today, we should let railways and ports be the symbols of them. China supports Chinese enterprises to participate in railways network construction in the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa, and supports its relevant provinces and regions to jointly build sister ports with important Arab port cities. China stands ready to jointly push forward the fusion of industries and ports with Arab countries, and build the ports with good geographic location into comprehensive bases of economic development, trade cooperation, industrial production and others in accordance with the mode of "port plus industrial park".

Second, both sides should carry out cooperation in production capacity to propel the industrialization process in Arab countries. With a huge market of 400 million people and an infrastructure construction scale of 4 trillion dollars, Arab states enjoy enormous industrialization potential. China boasts 220 types of industrial products that rank first in the world in terms of output, advanced and practical industrial equipment, as well as mature and reliable technologies. It maintains traditional strength in steels and irons, electricity, automobile manufacturing, heavy chemical industry and other fields, and enjoys increasingly remarkable competiveness in high-speed railways, nuclear power, satellite navigation, new energy and other areas. Supported by China's cost-effective equipment, along with technology transfer, personnel training and necessary financing, Arab countries can enter a fast track of industrialization with low-cost and high-baseline, and achieve the early landing of industrial projects with short cycle and quick return, which will not only ease employment pressure, but also obtain environment-friendly and advanced industrial technologies, in a move to blaze a new trail of industrialization featuring low cost, people-oriented concept and environmental protection.

Third, both sides should enhance civilization dialogue to consolidate the people-to-people and cultural support for China-Arab friendship. China is willing to, together with Arab countries, maintain civilization diversity, promote mutual learning and mutual reference among different civilizations, and jointly oppose to linking up terrorism with any specific nation or religion. Extreme thoughts do not represent Islam. Attaching importance to the role of the anti-terrorism alliance of Islamic states, China proposes to carry out bilateral cooperation in de-extremalization, resist extreme thoughts and religious instigation, and jointly give play to Islamic positive energy of valuing peace, upholding harmony, seeking truth and removing extremes. We stand ready to help Arab countries reinforce the ability to maintain stability.