China and Arab states are looking to deepen and expand their strategic partnerships to more countries along the belt & road. This comes as the 2019 China-Arab States Expo kicked off in northwestern China's Ningxia on Thursday. Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter to the biennial expo, hoping to promote all-around, future-oriented cooperation with Arab countries. CGTN reporter Wang Mengzhen takes us to the expo.

Artificial intelligence, 5G and space navigation. The latest hi-tech products are under the spotlight at the ongoing 2019 China-Arab States Expo.

ZHOU YONG, GENERAL MANAGER CNKI KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGY COMPANY "Currently, our newly-developed big data platform for belt and road tech cooperation is serving institutions, enterprises and governmental organizations from 23 countries within the initiative. Our platform includes the tech supplies & demands from these countries in 8 major industries such as AI, smart transportation and internet of things."

And this kind of business matching has become routine as this is now the fourth edition of the Expo held every two years in Ningxia.

Last year, bilateral trade between China and Arab countries enjoyed a 28% growth year on year, reaching more than 240 billion US dollars. And there's huge potential looking ahead.

Officials and businessmen from some 90 countries are at the 4-day expo, which includes multiple exhibitions and meetings. A large number of concrete collaboration plans and deals are expected to come out very soon. WMZ. CGTN, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.