ISLAMABAD-Pakistan and China are set to multiply cooperation after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s visit to China where the Chinese investors vowed to inject money in Pakistan.
Last year, trade between China and Pakistan reached $27.82 billion, a year-on-year increase of 59.1 percent. Chinese exports to Pakistan totalled $24.23 billion, a year-on-year increase of 57.8 percent, while imports from Pakistan were $3.59 billion, a year-on-year increase of 68.9 percent, showed data from the General Administration of Customs.
China will work with Pakistan to advance the Global Development Initiative (GDI), the Global Security Initiative (GSI), and make the global economic governance system more fair, equitable and inclusive that benefits all, Chinese President Xi Jinping said.
The GDI and the GSI, proposed by Xi Jinping in 2021 and 2022 respectively, seek to overcome the tunnel vision that contributes to the rise of de-globalisation, populism and xenophobia, which risk impeding global governance of development and security.
The GDI highlights re-energising and speeding up the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and building a global community of development, while the GSI gives clear answers to questions such as what security concept the world needs and how countries can achieve common security, which opens an important new way for global security governance.
This week, China and Pakistan vowed to make joint efforts in elevating the level of all-round strategic cooperation and inject new impetus into their all-weather strategic cooperative partnership.
Chinese President Xi Jinping said that Pakistan has always been a high priority in China’s neighbourhood diplomacy when meeting with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who was among the first foreign leaders invited to Beijing after the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC). This is also the Prime Minister’s first visit to China since assuming office in April.
Shehbaz said his visit is a “testament to the profound, iron-clad friendship” between Pakistan and China, adding that deepening Pakistan’s all-weather strategic cooperative partnership with China is a cornerstone of Pakistan’s foreign policy and the national consensus of Pakistan.
China has been Pakistan’s largest trade and investment partner, the largest exporter and the second largest importer for six consecutive fiscal years since 2015.
During PM Shehbaz’s visit, the two sides also signed and e-commerce, number of agreements, covering bilateral cooperation in areas of export of agricultural products, financial digital economy, protection of cultural property and infrastructure, among cooperation, others.
Pakistan and China have decided to expedite working on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor projects to benefit from the second phase of the CPEC plan.