Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Monday left for Saudi Arabia on a two-day official visit to attend the Saudi Future Investment Initiative Summit dubbed as “Davos in the desert” being held in Riyadh.
\nThe prime minister is undertaking the visit on the invitation of Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman.
\nPrior to his departure from Nur Khan Air Base, Shehbaz Sharif in a series of tweets said the present state of the global economy needed \u201cnew thinking and bold vision to overcome the irritants and forge new paths\u201d.
\nShehbaz Sharif said there were serious concerns about the threat of global recession hitting the economies.
\n\u201cThe pandemic and climate-induced disasters have already put immense strains on the developing countries,\u201d he said, adding that it was high time the world explored solutions to the deepening challenges through candid dialogue.
\nThe Foreign Office in a statement said, \u201cDuring his stay in Riyadh, the prime minister will hold consultations with the Saudi crown prince to review the longstanding fraternal relations, with a view to further strengthening the multifaceted cooperation, especially in the economic field\u201d.
\nHundreds of delegates from around the world including government officials, business leaders and even CEOs of American companies are attending the two-day Future Investment Initiative summit in Riyadh. The conference will kick off on Tuesday.
\nThe \u2018Davos in the desert\u2019 is taking place at a time when Saudi Arabia and the US clashed over Riyadh’s move to cut oil supplies despite request by President Biden to the contrary. The US officials were not invited to the investment summit, according to the organisers. However, 400 CEOs from different American companies will be in attendance. A strong Chinese delegation will be in Riyadh highlighting Saudi Arabia’s push to diversify its options and look beyond the West.
\nPakistan considers the conference as an opportunity to draw world’s attention towards the climate-induced floods.
\nShehbaz is visiting Saudi Arabia as the Saudi crown prince is also planning to visit Pakistan next month. Prime Minister Mohammad bin Salman is expected to travel to Islamabad next month on a crucial visit Pakistan is hoping will lead to yet another financial bailout package from the oil-rich Arab nation.
\nThough officials are tightlipped and not sharing details of the visit, sources confirmed to The Express Tribune that the two countries were in touch to prepare for the visit. Foreign office did not respond when asked to confirm the visit.
\nThere are reports that the Saudi crown prince may make a stopover in India on his way to Indonesia in mid-November, to meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The visit is expected to last a few hours on November 14, and both leaders are expected to depart for Bali to attend the G-20 summit there on November 15-16, according to Indian media.
\nWhile MBS is keen to travel to Islamabad, there are concerns that the visit may be delayed or put on hold if Imran Khan decided to launch the much-anticipated long march against the government.
\nPM Shehbaz invited the Saudi de facto ruler on a visit to Pakistan when he visited Saudi Arabia in July.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Monday left for Saudi Arabia on a two-day official visit to attend the Saudi Future Investment Initiative Summit dubbed as…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2085,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news-updates"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}