Saudi Arabia’s deputy interior minister Dr Nasser bin Abdul Aziz Al-Daoud arrived in Pakistan on Tuesday and is expected to sign the Road to Makkah project.

Al-Daoud arrived at the Noor Khan Airbase and was welcomed by Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah.

He is also scheduled to meet the minister for narcotics control, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Army Chief General Asim Munir.

The Road to Makkah project is aimed at easing access for Hajj pilgrims from five countries including Malaysia, Indonesia, Morocco, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

The project hopes to decrease processing times for pilgrims by completing most of their immigration procedure at their airport of departure, this would save them several hours when they arrive in Saudi Arabia.

The project began at the Islamabad Airport in 2022 and will be extended to Karachi and Lahore.

Hajj 2023 is set to be the first time that the annual pilgrimage will take place at its full scale since the coronavirus pandemic.

In 2019, about 2.5 million people took part in the rituals. For the next two years, numbers were drastically curtailed due to the pandemic.

In 2022, nearly 900,000 pilgrims, including some 780,000 from abroad, were welcomed to Islam’s holiest cities. Pilgrims were also restricted at that time to below 65 years of age and were asked to show proof of vaccination.