China’s Silk Road Fund has signed an agreement to take a 49% stake in the renewables subsidiary of Saudi Arabian electricity generation giant ACWA Power.

ACWA Power is a developer, owner and operator of power generation and water desalination plants. Silk Road Fund will come in as a partner and shareholder in ACWA Power Renewable Energy Holding (ACWA Power RenewCo). This renewable energy platform currently owns a number of ACWA’s existing renewable energy projects.

ACWA Power RenewCo will own ACWA Power’s Concentrated Solar Power, Photo Voltaic, and wind assets across the United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Jordan, Egypt and Morocco, yielding an aggregate capacity of 1668 MW.

“ACWA Power and Silk Road Fund’s further collaboration is a mirror image of the robust and strategic ties between Saudi Arabia and China that is strengthened year after year,” comments Paddy Padmanathan, president and CEO of ACWA Power.

“As a leading developer of power and water assets in the region, and being based in a Belt and Road country, welcoming Silk Road Fund on board as a shareholder further cements our position of being able to support both the economic transformation envisioned by the Belt and Road initiative as well as Saudi Arabia’s forward-looking Vision 2030,” adds Rajit Nanda, chief investment officer at ACWA Power.

Silk Road Fund was established in 2014, with investment from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, China Investment Corporation, China Development Bank and Export Import Bank of China.

The fund is a medium- to long-term development and investment fund. Through a variety of forms of investment and financing, primarily equity investment, the fund is dedicated to supporting infrastructure, resources and energy development, industrial capacity cooperation and financial cooperation in countries and regions involved in the Belt & Road Initiative.