YINCHUAN — A total of 277 deals worth approximately 156.7 billion yuan (about $24 billion) have been signed at the ongoing fifth China-Arab States Expo in Northwest China's Ningxia Hui autonomous region.

The deals cover various fields including electronic information, clean energy, new materials, green food, and tourism cooperation. Among them, investment of nearly 154 billion yuan was pooled to support 199 projects, while 24 trade projects worth 2.75 billion yuan were also inked during the expo.

This year's expo is held both online and offline for the first time in history due to COVID-19 prevention and control. More than 1,000 domestic and overseas enterprises have registered as exhibitors for offline and virtual events at the expo.

Since its inauguration in 2013, the biennial expo has attracted more than 5,000 enterprises from around 110 countries. In 2019, a total of 287 deals worth about 185.42 billion yuan were signed at the fourth China-Arab States Expo.