S. Arabia celebrates National Day

Sat, 10/11/2008 11:29 AM | World

The Saudi Arabian community in Jakarta celebrated its National Day on Friday with a big reception at the Shangri-La Hotel in Jakarta.

Saudi Arabian Ambassador to Indonesia Abdulrahman Mohammed Amen Al-Khayyat and his staff welcomed the guests, mainly Indonesia's officials, politicians, religious scholars, intellectuals and the foreign diplomatic corps.

Indonesia's second biggest Muslim organization Muhammadiyah chairman Din Syamsuddin, Foreign Ministry's top ranking officials Secretary-General Imron Cotan, director general for Asia-Pacific and African affairs Primo Alui Joelianto and director general for protocol and consular affairs Lutfi Rauf and the President's special envoy to the Middle East Alwi Shihab also attended the reception.

Actually, the National Day was supposed to be celebrated on Sept. 23.

"Due to the Ramadan month, we postponed our National Day celebration," the Saudi Arabian embassy's deputy head of mission Abdullah M.A. Algamdi told The Jakarta Post recently.

Between 1902 and 1932, King Abdul Aziz Bin Abdul Rahman Al-Saud united various tribes into one nation. Since then Saudi Arabia commemorates Sept. 23 as its National Day.

At the end of the reception everybody was given several books on Saudi Arabia and Islam and posters as souvenirs.

Indonesia and Saudi Arabia enjoy good relations. Last year the total value of the volume of trade between the two countries reached US$4.31 billion, with Indonesia importing $3.37 billion and exporting $944.28 million to Saudi Arabia. -- JP

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