Before the meeting, the delegation had a tour of the exhibition room at CBMA.
Mr. Ma Zhenzhu extended a warm welcome to Mr. Ahmad Al-Sa'adi and his delegation. He addressed that Aramco is a respectable partner with a forward-looking nonmetallic strategy, which is a shared vision with CNBM and CBMA. Over the past 18 months, CBMA has been offering NEXCEL all necessary support for its operation. Meanwhile, NEXCEL has achieved remarkable success, with 31 projects led by top Chinese teams making steady progress and yielding significant outcomes that have had a considerable impact in both academia and industry. Mr. Ma emphasized CBMA's commitment to collaborate closely with Aramco in developing NEXCEL into a more sustainable nonmetallic innovation platform and contribute to building a community with a shared future for mankind.
Mr. Ahmad Al-Sa'adi shared that Aramco started developing and utilizing nonmetallic materials 25 years ago and NEXCEL is the third nonmetallic center right after the centers in UK and US. He expressed his compliments on the outstanding accomplishments of NEXCEL achieved so far. He believed these encouraging accomplishments will be the key milestones of our collaboration forward. Mr. Al-Sa'adi emphasized that Aramco is dedicated to cooperating with CBMA through combining the vast opportunity of Chinese market with abundant resources in the Middle East, aiming to accelerate the commercialization of project outcomes and the deployment of reliable, cost-effective and sustainable nonmetallic materials as substitutes for metals.
Dr. Li Juan, Program Director of NEXCEL, presented on the achievements of NEXCEL, with a focus on project progress and accomplishments, as well as the engineering demonstrations. She stated that NEXCEL is providing green construction solutions and green circularity solution with nonmetallic materials to improve the sustainability and lower the carbon footprint, which aligned with the China's ‘Carbon Peak and Neutrality Goal’ and ‘Saudi Vision 2030’.
After the meeting, the Aramco delegation visited the exhibition of project achievements at NEXCEL office, and had in-depth discussions with the project teams. Seven project team members introduced their project background, researches and outcomes respectively. Mr. Ahmad Al-Sa'adi spoke highly of the brilliant research project using nonmetallic materials. He was amazed by the level of competency and innovation that was exhibited by the researchers. He encouraged them to keep up the excellent work in the upcoming projects.
This visit was of great importance to improve the mutual trust and enhance the cooperation between Aramco and CBMA. NEXCEL will continue stepping towards the vision to transform the building and construction sector to nonmetallic-based materials.
