China's Guangdong Overseas Construction Group Co Ltd signed a $612 million contract with Saudi Arabia's King Khalid University Thursday.

The agreement was inked by Ma Ruixin, chairman of the board of the Chinese company, and Saudi Arabian Higher Education Minister Khalid Bin Mohammad al-Ankary.

During the signing ceremony, Ma pledged that his company would fulfill the task of constructing 16 buildings and their annexes, part of the university's expansion program, with high quality and efficiency to promote trade cooperation between China and Saudi Arabia.

Dr Abdullah al-Rashid, president of the university, said that the company had been selected through a strict bidding process and believed that the project would be soon completed with joint efforts from the two sides.

The project, the largest the Chinese company has undertaken since the signing of a cooperation memorandum between the two countries in June 2007, will cover an area of 550,000 square km and has a construction period of 36 months, according to the contract.