Saudi Arabia will host its first-ever G20 Summit in 2020

According to an official announcement made on Saturday, Saudi Arabia will be hosting the G20 Summit in 2020. 

The announcement was made by Minister of State, Cabinet member and President of the Kingdom's delegation to this year's summit, Dr. Ibrahim Al-Assaf, Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported. 

“The leaders of G20 member countries welcomed the Kingdom’s hosting of the G20 summit in 2020. We have started work as of now to organize the G20 summit meeting in the Kingdom, God willing, with follow up by Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman, deputy premier, minister of defense and chairman of the Council for Economic and Development Affairs (CEDA)," Al-Assaf said. 

The G20 "is the central forum for international cooperation on financial and economic issues."

Countries who take part in its annual summits account "for more than four-fifths of gross world product and three-quarters of global trade, and are home to almost two-thirds of the world’s population."

This year's summit was held on the 7th and 8th of June in Hamburg, Germany. 

Saudi's Minister of Finance, Mohammad Al-Jadaan officially welcomed the latest news, CNN Arabic reported.  

In a statement he made on Saturday, Al-Jadaan said that the approval of the Kingdom's request to host the summit reflects its important political and economic place in the world. 

He also added that the country sees the summit as an opportunity to continue cooperating with world powers on highlighting important economic issues and achieving strong and sustainable global economic growth. 

The 2020 G20 summit won't be the first of its kind to be hosted by Saudi Arabia.  

In May 2017, the kingdom hosted three summits in Riyadh. 

These include the Saudi-U.S. summit, GCC-U.S. summit and the Arab Islamic American summit, which was attended by President Donald Trump and 55 leaders from across the Islamic world.