Markets

How China Became Saudi Arabia’s Largest Trading Partner

Published

2 years ago

February 19, 2023

Ehsan Soltani

Featured Creator

Article/Editing:

Freny Fernandes

Saudi Arabia turns to China for trade

Saudi Arabia’s Trade With China Surpasses the West

Over the past two decades, the economic presence of China has been growing significantly around the world.

The country has already surpassed the U.S. as the largest trading partner of developed nations such as Japan and the European Union.

But the world’s second largest economy is making significant inroads in the Middle East as well. This graphic by Ehsan Soltani uses data from the World Trade Organization (WTO) to chart Saudi Arabia’s trading history with the EU, the U.S, and China.

Evolving Trade Relations

With China’s imports from and exports to Saudi Arabia now exceeding the major oil-producing country’s combined trade with the U.S. and the EU, China has become Saudi Arabia’s dominant trading partner.

Saudi Arabia Net Trade by Year	With China ($B)	With U.S. ($B)	With EU-27 ($B)
2021	$87.3B	$25.1B	$53.1B
2020	$67.2B	$20.6B	$43.8B
2019	$78.1B	$28.3B	$57.4B
2018	$63.5B	$38.2B	$62.7B
2017	$50.1B	$36.0B	$52.6B
2016	$42.9B	$36.0B	$49.1B
2015	$51.8B	$43.2B	$56.9B
2014	$69.1B	$67.1B	$73.0B
2013	$72.2B	$72.1B	$75.2B
2012	$73.3B	$75.3B	$74.3B
2011	$64.3B	$62.7B	$70.0B
2010	$43.2B	$44.1B	$47.4B
2009	$32.6B	$34.0B	$38.2B
2008	$41.8B	$69.5B	$58.4B
2007	$25.4B	$47.6B	$47.3B
2006	$20.1B	$40.9B	$46.2B
2005	$16.1B	$35.7B	$39.9B
2004	$10.3B	$27.8B	$30.5B
2003	$7.3B	$24.1B	$24.4B
2002	$5.1B	$18.7B	$20.5B
2001	$4.1B	$19.2B	$19.6B

Back in 2001, Saudi Arabia’s trade with China was a mere fraction—just one-tenth—of its combined trade with the EU and United States. While the total value of trade was modest at this time, it’s been increasing consistently almost every year since.

By the year 2011, China had surpassed the U.S. for the first time in bilateral trade value with Saudi Arabia. Then by 2018, trade between China and Saudi Arabia surpassed the Middle-Eastern country’s trade with the entire EU.

Fast forward to today, and China has emerged as a larger trading partner with Saudi Arabia than the rest of the West combined.

The Perfect Match?

China’s status as Saudi Arabia’s biggest trading partner makes sense considering its recent economic growth and focus.

China is the largest buyer of crude oil in the world, and it buys more from the Saudi Arabia than anywhere else. Almost half of the $87.3 billion bilateral trade between the two nations in 2021 was comprised of China’s crude oil imports. This accounted for 77% of China’s total imports from Saudi Arabia, which also included goods like plastic—a petroleum product.

Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, imported over $30 billion worth of goods including technological equipment, telephones, and light fixtures.

To see what other countries China has become the largest trading partner of, check out How China Overtook the U.S. as the World’s Major Trading Partner.

This article was published as a part of Visual Capitalist's Creator Program, which features data-driven visuals from some of our favorite Creators around the world.

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Leadership

Ranked: America’s Smartest CEOs According to Linguistic Analysis

This infographic reveals the smartest CEOs in the U.S., ranked by how intelligently they communicate complex ideas.

Published

6 days ago

April 17, 2025

Marcus Lu

America’s Smartest CEOs According to Linguistic Analysis

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Key Takeaways

Preply analyzed dialogue from over 100 American CEOs to score their intelligence
NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang scored the highest in this ranking, followed by Lockheed Martin’s Jim Taiclet and DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis

How smart are America’s top CEOs?

A recent study published in Frontiers in Psychology found that individuals who use more complex sentence structures tend to perform better in uncertain decision-making scenarios—suggesting a link between linguistic sophistication and cognitive ability.

In this infographic, we rank the 15 smartest CEOs in the U.S., based on linguistic analysis conducted by Preply.

Data & Methodology

Preply’s ranking of America’s smartest CEOs is based on a linguistic analysis of executive speeches and interviews. They started with the CEOs of the 100 largest companies by market capitalization, and included an additional 26 executives (e.g. OpenAI’s Sam Altman). An average of 2.25 hours of speech was analyzed per executive.

The researchers assessed several cognitive and communication traits, including verbal ability, abstract and conceptual thinking, creativity, memory and recall, and logical reasoning.

Using these criteria, they scored each CEO on how effectively and intelligently they express complex ideas. The study aimed to capture not just intellect, but the clarity and depth of thought behind each leader’s words.

Rank	Name	Company	Score
1	Jensen Huang	NVIDIA	81.3
2	Jim Taiclet	Lockheed Martin	80.9
3	Demis Hassabis	DeepMind	80.8
4	Vincent Roche	Analog Devices	80.6
5	Matt Murphy	Marvell Technology Group	78.4
6	Reed Hastings	Netflix	77.3
7	Joseph Dominguez	Constellation Energy	76.7
8	Stephen Schwarzman	Blackstone Group	76.4
9	Robert Ford	Abbott Laboratories	76.1
10	Marc Andreessen	Andreessen Horowitz	75.5
11	Patrick Collison	Stripe	75.4
12	Sam Altman	OpenAI	75.2
12	Shantanu Narayen	Adobe	75.2
14	Robert Bradway	Amgen	74.4
15	Jamie Dimon	JPMorgan Chase	74.3

Five Facts About Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia

Here are five interesting facts about Jensen Huang, the smartest CEO in America according to Preply.

Immigrant Roots: Born in Taiwan and raised in Thailand, Huang moved to the U.S. at age 9 and attended a Kentucky reform school by mistake. He went on to earn degrees from Oregon State and Stanford.
Startup at Denny’s: Nvidia was founded in 1993 during a breakfast meeting at a Denny’s in San Jose.
Intense Work Ethic: Huang works 14-hour days, manages 60+ direct reports, and prefers fast-paced, transparent group meetings.
Family in Tech: He’s related to Lisa Su, the CEO of AMD—making them rivals and relatives in the chip world.
Education Philanthropy: Huang has donated millions to Stanford and Oregon State to fund engineering and AI research.