Chinese President Hu Jintao will set foot on Saudi Arabia Tuesday, highlighting the importance China attaches to the strategic friendly relations between the two nations.

Hu's three-day state visit, at the invitation of King of Saudi Arabia Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz, is his second one to the Arab state since April 2006.

The visit is aimed at furthering China's friendship and cooperation with the country and strengthening its cooperation with the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC), Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said.

Since 1990, the two countries have witnessed rapid development in exchanges and cooperation in political, economic, cultural, educational, religious and other aspects.

In recent years, their political mutual trust and exchanges of high-level visits have also been on a rise.

King Abdullah paid a state visit to China in January 2006, the first official overseas visit after his succession as king, and also the first visit to China by Saudi king since the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1990.

In the same year, Hu paid a return visit to Saudi Arabia in April. The successful exchange of visits by the two heads of state has promoted bilateral pragmatic cooperation and boosted the strategic friendly cooperative relations between the two countries.

Hu's upcoming visit provides an opportunity for the two countries to further consolidate and strengthen bilateral strategic cooperation, Chinese Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Yang Honglin told Xinhua.

It shows Chinese leaders attach great importance to the Sino-Saudi relations and China hopes the visit can push bilateral relations to a higher level, Yang said.

After the devastating earthquake in Wenchuan, China's southwest Sichuan Province last May, Saudi Arabia immediately provided China with 50 million U.S. dollars in cash and 10 million U.S. dollars in goods, which the Chinese government and the people will remember forever, he said.

Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping visited the country last June, when he also attended the Jeddah International Energy Conference, at which he elaborated China's policy stance on cooperation with Saudi Arabia and the GCC, which groups Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The two countries hold similar views on major international and regional issues and have maintained coordination and cooperation in these aspects, Yang said.

In respect of economic ties, Saudi Arabia has been China's largest trade partner in West Asia for eight years. Statistics from China Customs showed bilateral trade volume in 2008 exceeded 41.8 billion U.S. dollars.

In the fields of culture, education and religion, the two countries have signed a series of agreements. The King Abdullah Scholarship has sponsored 147 Saudi students to study in China since it was created in 2006. The number of Muslim pilgrims in China making trips to Mecca has also grown year by year and the number reached 12,000 last year.

Saudi Arabia is the first leg of Hu's five-nation visit, which will also take him to Mali, Senegal, Tanzania and Mauritius.

During his visit in Saudi Arabia, Hu will hold talks with King Abdullah to exchange views on furthering friendly cooperation as well as international and regional issues of common concern, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

He will also visit a cement production line constructed by Chinese enterprises in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, the ministry said.

(Xinhua News Agency February 9, 2009)