ISLAMABAD, June 24: President General Pervez Musharraf will pay an official visit to Saudi Arabia from June 25-26 at the invitation of the Saudi leadership. He will hold talks with Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz and perform Umrah.

The president’s visit will take place against the backdrop of excellent brotherly and cordial relations the two countries traditionally enjoy, a foreign office spokesman said in a statement here on Friday.

The president’s focus during the visit will be on furthering relations with Saudi Arabia in political, economic, commercial, investment and security areas.

The visit will also provide an opportunity to the leaders to discuss regional and international issues, the spokesman said. Cordial and fraternal relations between the two countries have been sustained by exchange of high level visits in the past and recently.

These have contributed to better understanding of each other’s point of view and opened up further avenues of mutually beneficial cooperation.

The spokesman said there were around one million Pakistani expatriates in Saudi Arabia. Bilateral trade between the two countries during 2003-4 reached $2.12 billion. Pakistan’s exports during this period was $3478.5 million.