Meeting between top diplomats of Poland and Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia is Poland's strategically important partner in the Gulf and Middle East region. Since renewing Polish-Saudi diplomatic relations in 1995, the two countries have maintained friendly relations, enabling their fruitful and multidimensional cooperation. The chief of Polish diplomacy expressed his hope for good cooperation within the G20:

Saudi Arabia's economy ranks 19th in the world, and we have just become the world's 20th largest economy, which gives us reason to believe that we will be good partners within the G20.

Deputy Prime Minister Sikorski highlighted that he Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is Poland's most important economic partner among the Arab states. It accounts for 60 per cent of Poland's crude oil supplies and is our largest trading partner in the Middle East.

Warsaw and Riyadh see the opportunities for enhanced cooperation in many areas, such as trade, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, technology transfer, and green energy. Poland has potential in several areas, which Saudi Arabia can exploit, for instance to achieve the ambitious goals of its Vision 2030.

The talks concluded with the signing ceremony of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Government of the Republic of Poland on the Establishment of the Saudi-Polish Coordination Council. The document provides for the possibility of the establishment of working groups, which will be responsible for developing projects within different ministries. The heads of diplomacy also signed an agreement today to waive visa requirements for holders of diplomatic, service, and special passports, which provides an opportunity to strengthen direct contacts between the representatives of the two countries.

We have very good relations, but in some areas our cooperation is still rather limited. I believe that the council will be a permanent consultative body which will work towards enhancing trade and economic cooperation (...) We are going to strengthen our cooperation so that is reflects the ambitions of our friendly nations. Saudi Arabia welcomes its good cooperation with Poland at many regional and international fora - noted Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud.

To name but few examples, Saudi Arabia and Poland share their respect for the paramount role of international law in relations between countries, readiness to cooperate towards stabilising hotspots across the globe, and endeavours for peaceful conflict resolution.

Saudi Arabia's foreign minister last visited Warsaw in September 2020.

Photo: Konrad Laskowski, Marcin Maniewski MFA