Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia sign 6 bilateral deals to forge closer economic ties, John Lee vows ‘new level of cooperation’

Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia have signed six bilateral agreements designed to forge closer ties between their stock exchanges, business associations and technology firms, and the city’s leader vowed the two economies were “entering a new level of cooperation”.

Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu on Monday was also seen by the Post meeting state oil giant Aramco’s president and CEO Amin Nasser at a flagship technology conference in the Saudi capital Riyadh.

But Lee stopped short of reporting substantial progress on his administration’s efforts to attract Aramco or its subsidiaries to consider a secondary listing in Hong Kong as he left the kingdom after a two-day stay for Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates as his second stop on his week-long Middle East trip.

He said earlier that his itinerary did not include a visit to Aramco, the world’s largest oil company and headquartered in the eastern city of Dharan, a four-hour drive from Riyadh.

“We will be looking at all sorts of scales of developing relationships with enterprises including Aramco, of course … I will be telling them about different opportunities,” Lee said.

The four memorandums of understanding (MOU) and two letters of intent (LOI) were exchanged at an investment forum on Sunday night.