By Haslinda Zainal, NNN-Bernama,
Kuala Lumpur : Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has arrived here to attend the Summit of the Group of Eight Islamic Developing Countries (D-8) to be held here Tuesday.
He was greeted on arrival Monday by Deputy Foreign Minister Abdul Rahim Bakri at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang near here.
Gilani is the third leader of the D-8 to arrive for the summit. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in the morning while Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono arrived on Sundayr.
The Pakistani prime minister is leading a 50-member delegation, including eight members of Pakistan’s National Assembly, to the D-8 Summit.
This will be 56-year-old Gilani’s first visit to Malaysia after taking office as Pakistan’s 22nd prime minister on March 25, this year.
Gilani is expected to have a bilateral meeting with his Malaysian counterpart, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, on the sidelines of the summit.
Abdullah will open the summit Tuesday.
Pakistan’s focus at the summit is expected to be on intra-D-8 trade and the need to invest in research and development for the development of alternative energy such as wind and solar power, in the wake of the rise in the global oil prices.
Trade between Malaysia and Pakistan topped the one billion USD mark in 2007, and Pakistan expects this to double in 2008, with the implementation of the free trade pact which went into force in January this year.
The D-8, which was established in 1997, groups the Islamic world’s eight most populous nations from South East Asia, South Asia, Africa and the Middle East and North Africa — Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Nigeria, Malaysia, Pakistan and Turkey.