Editor's note: Georges Elhedery is HSBC CEO for Middle East, North Africa, and Turkey. The article reflects the author's opinion, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

The connections between China and the Middle East have helped shape the world's economic history. The shape of the future is increasingly bound to their ambitious economic transformation agendas.

Plans being put into motion today are driving economic diversification and development, facilitating trade and investment, and creating millions of new jobs for newly emerging classes of consumers in the Middle East.

Take the infrastructure being built along the route of China's Belt and Road Initiative and the Arabian Gulf programs such as UAE Vision 2021 and Saudi Vision 2030.

These projects will create the transport networks, education and healthcare facilities, and the housing stock that will benefit people today and for generations to come.

Meanwhile, the estimated three trillion US dollars of investment needed to fund the projects is reshaping the capital market opportunities for investors and corporations alike.

Debt and equity markets are growing in the Middle East, deepening and allowing corporations to bring onshore the capital markets functionality that they had effectively offshored or outsourced elsewhere. It creates a new operating model for investment.

Across the Middle East, every step to improve access to capital markets – and every new transaction that access enables – serves to extend the financing capabilities of the region's economies.

Regional exchanges are integrating into the global regulatory architecture, following international best practices, thereby creating access to an entirely new pool of assets, backed by real economic activity and demand.

Money raised from investors in debt capital markets across the Middle East is running at record levels, with data from Bloomberg showing 70.6 billion US dollars raised in the Middle East and North Africa in the first half of 2018 – the strongest first half on record.

The increasingly wealthy economies of Asia are similarly looking at the potential of the Middle East's economic transformation, interested in investing both in physical assets and financial instruments.

Asian economies – led by China – have themselves grown strongly in the opening decades of the 21st century, joining the ranks of the world's major manufacturing and trade hubs and creating a new class of consumers and investors in the process.

A deeper relationship with the Middle East serves both sides well: China is a growing market for crude oil and refined products, while the Middle East is an increasingly attractive consumer market for the manufactured goods that China leads the world in making.

This makes a powerful basis for relationships between companies wanting to tap into some of the world's most exciting investment opportunities.

HSBC's Trade Navigator report shows that imports for Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, and Turkey are growing faster from China than anywhere else in the world.

Since 2014, more than 50 billion US dollars' worth of contracts have been signed between entities in China and the Middle East, with the UAE a proven hub for Chinese businesses that are increasingly international.

The UAE is home to Jebel Ali, the world's busiest port outside of Asia – handling 15 million containers every year – making it a crucial gateway for two-way trade worth 570 billion US dollars with Asia, Europe, Africa and the rest of the world.

Approximately 60 percent of China-UAE trade is re-exported to Africa or Europe. Abu Dhabi ports and the Jiangsu Provincial Overseas Cooperation and Investment Company Limited recently announced that 15 Chinese companies have agreed to invest one billion US dollars in the Khalifa Port Free Trade Zone.

It is clear to us that the Belt and Road Initiative is reshaping established trade routes and economic corridors.

It is also clear to us that the Middle East – the connecting point for three continents – has a pivotal part to play at the heart of the Belt and Road.

The economic ties between China and the Middle East are strong and stretch back centuries.

In the most recent 10 year period, two-way trade in this business corridor has roughly doubled. It was worth more than 80 billion US dollars in 2016.

From our vantage point of financing trade and investment between China and the rest of the world for the last 152 years, we think the potential is enormous.

The way we see it, the Belt and Road Initiative is the world's most ambitious international investment program.

The Middle East is home to the world's most ambitious economic transformation program.

When the two come together, the opportunities are tremendous.

(If you want to contribute and have a specific expertise, please contact us at opinions@cgtn.com)