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But on this visit the Chinese, who went to see the aluminium smelter, expressed what Shaikh Muhammad thought an encouraging interest in purchasing aluminium.
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I followed up this last point with the Deputy Chief Executive of the aluminium company, ALBA. He confirmed that the Chinese had visited ALBA and he had been very impressed by how many of the party spoke Arabic. When it came to business however there had been many questions, vague promises but no business. The press also reported an air transport agreement presumably related to Gulf Air's plans to expand its route network.
4. Two days after the Chinese Foreign Minister's visit the Ambassador, who had stayed on, gave a reception to open the new Chinese Embassy premises here. Attendance was extremely thin. The fact that it was held at 12 noon in the middle of a working day probably counted for much of that, but it also suggests that the Foreign Minister's visit pretty well exhausted Bahrain's curiosity about the Chinese. Their energetic young Charge d'Affaires, Zhang Weiqiu, has a pretty uphill task.
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