On April 18, 2025, the fifth China-Arab States Forum on Reform and Development was held in Shanghai. Special Envoy Zhai Jun of the Chinese Government on the Middle East Issue, as well as government officials, experts, scholars, and business representatives from China and Arab states in the fields of innovation, economy and trade, and investment attended the forum.

Zhai Jun said that in May last year, President Xi Jinping attended the opening ceremony of the 10th Ministerial Conference of the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum and proposed that China is ready to build the "five cooperation frameworks" with Arab states, which has charted the course for the innovative development of China-Arab cooperation. Today, changes unseen in a century are unfolding at an accelerated pace, and global economic growth is facing instability. China has sufficient policy tools in reserve to completely hedge against adverse external impacts. No matter how the international landscape evolves, China will always focus on managing its own affairs well, comprehensively advance Chinese modernization, and will always work shoulder to shoulder with Arab states, uphold the original intention of friendship and mutual trust, enhance confidence in innovative development, firmly resolve to openness and win-win results, and unite and cooperate for common development.

The Arab representatives highly praised the Global Development Initiative, commended China's development achievements and contributions to global growth, and looked forward to China empowering the world with high-quality development and high-standard opening up. The Arab side expressed willingness to deepen cooperation with China in various fields, jointly safeguard the multilateral trading system, advance their respective modernization, and achieve development and prosperity.

The forum, supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and organized by the China-Arab Research Center on Reform and Development, focuses on discussions and exchanges on the topics of innovation-driven development, trade, and investment.