The business behind the visit

(CNN) -- Behind the state banquet and smiles from Queen Elizabeth and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia's visit to London this week caused a wave of dissent.

The UK political elite boycotted events. Demonstrators lined the Mall. The UK foreign secretary pulled out of a meeting with his Saudi counterpart to be with his new adopted son. And just days before he arrived, the Saudi King accused British officials of ignoring information that could have averted the terror attacks in London on July 2005.

Whether the politics of the event were a success is open to debate. But this was just part of the story. The Saudis were also in town to cement a strong trading and business relationship that has developed between the two Kingdoms over the last 20 years.

Saudi Arabia is the UK's largest trading partner in the Middle East. And behind the USA, the UK is the second largest foreign investor in the Kingdom.

UK Trade & Investment has designated Saudi Arabia one of its 17 "High Growth Markets" along with UAE and Qatar in the region. As the nation diversifies its economy away from oil, commercial opportunities for UK thrive in a variety of sectors.

Saudi Arabia is currently planning six privately-developed economic cities. The $26.6 billion King Abdullah Economic City -- the largest of these -- will create one million jobs and home to two million residents.

The aim, says the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority, is to boost the economy by creating a pro-business environment, and attracting investors and fostering investment opportunities.

The UK has, since the early 1990s, been one of the top five exporters to Saudi Arabia, behind USA, Germany, China and Japan. In 2007, Saudi Arabian bank SABB predicts that UK exports to the Kingdom will increase by more than 5.5 per cent to reach $2.8 billion.

While the balance of trade continues to be favor of the British, Saudi Arabia's exports to Britain are also gaining ground and closing the trade gap. This year, exports to Britain are expected to reach a record high of $2.1 billion, says SABB.

And this isn't all about oil. In the 1980s, three quarters of Saudi exports to the UK were from oil, but today the non-oil sector accounts for 59 percent of exports. Products being shipped to the UK include machinery, transport equipment, plastics, non-metallic minerals and, despite the UK's dominance in the sector, chemicals.

According to SABB, there are also more than 150 Saudi-British joint ventures underway with a value of around $15 billion.

As John Sfakianakis, chief economist from SABB says, state visits such as this are important for bolstering trade talks, past and future.

"The biggest deal that will mark their relationship in trade is the purchase of 72 Eurofighter Typhoon Jets that was sealed last week," says Sfakianakis.

The contract between the Kingdom and the UK Ministry of Defence via BAE is worth over almost $10 billion for the aircraft alone and a further $19 billion for the deployment, maintenance and training. This comes less than a year after the UK government decided to call off a Serious Fraud Office investigation into defense contracts with Saudi Arabia.

This probe related to the sale of weapons by BAE Systems to Saudi Arabia in the 1980s. BAE has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and making payments to Saudi royals to win business.

But as Sfakianakis points out, any political sensitivity surrounding the visit is unlikely to harm future trading relationships between the nations. "The relationship is far deeper than that," he says. "Saudi Arabia's economy is booming and the opportunities businessmen see here are immense. Everything else takes a subsidiary part in that." E-mail to a friend