Heads of state from the Middle East and Latin American are arriving in Saudi Arabia, with King Salman at the airport to greet dignitaries coming for a joint summit aimed at boosting trade ties and policy coordination between the two regions.
This is the fourth Arab-South American summit to bring together top officials from the Arab League’s 22 member-states and 12 countries from South America. The meetings, held every three years, began in Brazil in 2005, followed by summits in Qatar and Peru.
Ahead of this two-day summit, which starts Tuesday, Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elaraby was quoted in the state-run Kuwait News Agency as saying that trade between the two regions reached $30 billion in 2014, compared to just $6 billion when the summit began a decade ago.
(AP)
