Banquet hall.
A spread of delicious dishes sat before the three of them, yet not one of them reached for their chopsticks.
"Collaborative research and development with Great Xia? I think we should forget it."
Abdul refused without even hesitating. "Forgive my bluntness, but given Saudi Arabia's current capabilities, research and development is not a path we should be taking."
One reason was that Saudi Arabia was rich. Its oil reserves ranked second in the world, and all of it was top-quality crude—the kind that would gush out if they casually dug a hole. Its natural gas, gold, silver, and other mineral reserves also ranked among the best in the world.
They could dig up a few things from the ground and make vast amounts of money. Why would they need to do research and earn hard money?
The second reason was that Saudi Arabia was not suited for scientific development. Never mind whether they had the capability; 95 percent of the country was desert. There was little land available for development to begin with. Where would they build factories? Where would they build cities?
Besides, although Saudi Arabia was wealthy, that was only because its size was small and its finances were entirely controlled by the royal family. The entire country's GDP last year had only been a little over 400 billion US Dollars—some southern provinces of Great Xia had a much higher GDP than that.
Therefore, their current focus was largely on tourism, related industries, financial investments, and other sectors, preparing in advance for the day their oil resources ran dry.
Scientific research? Whoever wanted to do it could do it. Saudi Arabia only needed to buy, buy, buy.
"Ambassador Abdul, I think you misunderstand."
Zhang Yuli was in no hurry. He smiled and said, "The project we're