On September 24, 2023, the Tianjin Institute of Seawater Desalination and Comprehensive Utilization of the Ministry of Natural Resources (hereinafter referred to as the "Desalination Institute") and Saudi International Electricity and Water Company (hereinafter referred to as "ACWA") signed the "Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in Seawater Desalination Projects".

Zhang Qiufeng, deputy director of the Desalination Institute, and Marco Arcelli, CEO of ACWA, signed the memorandum of cooperation on behalf of both parties. Ruan Guoling, director of the Desalination Institute, and Raad Al-Saady, vice chairman of ACWA, witnessed the signing of the memorandum. Chu Xizhang, deputy director of the Desalination Institute, Lv Yunhe, executive vice president of ACWA, and the project management teams of both parties attended the signing ceremony.

After the signing ceremony, the two sides held a discussion on further deepening pragmatic cooperation. In the future, the two sides will carry out all-round cooperation in the fields of desalination equipment and materials, engineering operation and maintenance, concentrated seawater chemical resource extraction, water reuse, desalination environmental impact monitoring and assessment, standardization, etc., give full play to their respective advantages, and work together to promote the development of potential desalination projects in many regions around the world, including the Middle East and North Africa, Central Asia and China.

ACWA, headquartered in Riyadh, is an internationally renowned power and desalination company with 72 projects in operation, under construction or in the mid- to late-stage development, assets in 12 countries, and its largest shareholder is the Public Investment Fund (PIF), which is wholly owned by the Saudi government. Currently, ACWA's total global asset investment exceeds US$75 billion, with 50 GW of installed power capacity and 7.6 million tons/day of desalination capacity. The company established a Chinese office in Beijing in 2009, and in the following 13 years, it has achieved strategic cooperation with Chinese companies in all aspects of investment, financing, construction, procurement, and execution, and has achieved remarkable results.