Chinese President Hu Jintao visits Saudi Arabia on Tuesday on a trip aimed at cementing relations built on the Chinese economy’s massive needs for Saudi oil and petrochemicals.

The trip, Hu’s second to the oil powerhouse, underscores China’s focus on securing energy and other mineral resources that power its massive manufacturing sector.

Hu is due to stay in the Saudi Arabia until February 12, Saudi and Chinese officials said. His trip will also take him to Mali, Senegal, Tanzania and Mauritius, his fourth visit to Africa.

While Hu and Saudi King Abdullah are expected to sign several accords governing trade, health and other areas of cooperation, China’s imports of Saudi oil and oil products will continue to be at the core of the relationship, dominating the 41.8 billion dollars in two-way trade in 2008, the Chinese embassy in Riyadh said.

In Riyadh, Hu will meet as well with Gulf Cooperation Council Secretary General Abdulrahman Hamad al-Attiyah to discuss trade liberalisation measures, according to the embassy.

According to media reports, Chinese oil processing giant Sinopec could ink agreements with the Saudi state oil company Aramco on participating in the construction of two Saudi refineries.

Since 2004 Sinopec has also been exploring for oil in Saudi Arabia together with Aramco.

But Chinese companies are increasingly interested in winning a share of Saudi Arabia’s huge spending on non-energy-related development projects, and in providing workers to the manpower-hungry Middle East country.

Saudi officials have said that the desert kingdom will spend 450 billion riyals (120 billion dollars) on infrastructure, education and new cities over the next five years.

Chinese companies have submitted bids to take part in projects for roads, railways, power generation, port development and other areas.

On Friday Saudi officials announced that a consortium including China Railway Engineering had won the 6.8 billion riyal (1.8 billion dollar) civil works contract for a 444-kilometre (275-mile) high-speed railroad linking the two Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina through Jeddah.

Chinese officials say there are 62 Chinese companies operating in the kingdom with nearly 22,000 workers on their payrolls, of which 15,800 are Chinese.

Chinese embassy spokesman Yuan Yuan said the country’s telecoms giant Huawei Technology has become the largest supplier of telecommunications services for the more than two million hajj pilgrims to Mecca each year in cooperation with Saudi Telecom Company.