ISLAMABAD: A high-level Saudi delegation led by the chairman of the country’s Shoura Council, Dr. Abdullah Bin Muhammad Bin Ibrahim Al-Shaikh, left Pakistan on Friday after a three-day visit, resolving to enhance economic cooperation between the two countries.

During the visit, Al-Shaikh called on the top civilian and military leadership of the country, including Prime Minister Imran Khan and Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa.

Al-Shaikh said his team had “fruitful deliberations” with Pakistani leaders: “The existing relations between the two countries would take a new turn for unprecedented cooperation in economic and trade sectors,” the Shoura chairman was quoted as saying by Pakistan’s Senate secretariat in a statement released on Friday.

In a meeting with the delegation on Thursday, Khan had reiterated Pakistan’s commitment to the “peace and security of Saudi Arabia and the sanctity of Harmain Sharifain.”

In October last year, during Prime Minister Khan’s second visit to the Kingdom, Saudi Arabia agreed to extend $6 billion in financial assistance to Islamabad – $3 billion in foreign currency support and $3 billion in deferred oil payments – to help stave off a current account crisis.

The two countries also signed memoranda of understanding and agreements worth over $20 billion during the high-profile visit of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to Islamabad in February this year.

“Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have agreed to further boost the economic cooperation and institutional linkages for pursuing a common agenda for regional development and sustainable peace,” Chairman Senate Muhammad Sadiq Sanjrani said on Friday while seeing off the Saudi delegation at the Islamabad airport.

Sanjrani also praised the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 and hoped the initiative would help reduce unemployment, develop linkages with international markets and offer a win-win situation for all stakeholders.

“Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are intertwined into a relationship having its basis in religious, social, cultural and historic commonalities,” he said.

Earlier in the day, the Saudi delegation was briefed on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a $62 billion flagship project of the Chinese One Belt One Road initiative launched in 2015, that envisages developing railways, road networks, energy projects and the Gwadar port in Pakistan.

“The Saudi delegates acknowledged that this corridor is not just a project between two countries but will benefit the whole region with two billion people and 48 countries,” the Senate secretariat said in its statement.