Queen Elizabeth II will host leaders from around the Commonwealth in 2018, London announced on Monday, as Britain seeks to boost trade with its historic allies as it leaves the EU.
The biennial summit in April next year will take place in London and Windsor, west of the capital, and will be staged for the first time at Buckingham Palace.
The 90-year-old queen is the symbolic head of the Commonwealth and the 2018 summit might be the last one she attends in person, having discontinued long-haul travel for the summits.
As Britain leaves the European Union and becomes free to strike its own trade deals, it is openly looking to its historic partners in the Commonwealth and the 2018 summit will likely focus on commerce.
Commonwealth trade ministers met for the first time in 11 years last week in a push to boost business by capitalising on their shared legal systems, regulation and language.
The Commonwealth brings together around a third of the world’s population and a quarter of its countries, largely former territories of the British empire.