PM’s recent visit to China highly significant in Pak-China friendly relationship: Ahsan Iqbal

ISLAMABAD (APP): Minister for Planning, Development, and Special Initiatives, Professor Ahsan Iqbal said that the recent visit of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to China was termed highly significant in the context of Pak-China friendly relationship.

He expressed these words while talking in a programme aired on a private news channel the other day. He said he had been participated along with the Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in all meetings there in China.

He said that Chinese leadership was very enthusiastic and committed to help Pakistan in different ventures. He said that it was Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s wish to enhance Industrial-level contacts with China to promote industrialization between the two states.

Minister said that we had focused on enhancing business-to-business relationships to promote the industries.

He said that China’s leading telecom company, Hawaii, would become a strategic partner of Pakistan in the transformation of the Pakistani economy to a digital economy.

He was also optimistic that the company would provide IT training to 0.3 million Pakistani youth.

While talking about the gains in the larger context of CPEC he said China was committed to starting five corridors in the upgraded version of CPEC in Pakistan. He said that the first corridor would be a ‘corridor of growth’ bringing rapid economic growth to Pakistan, and the second corridor would be a ‘corridor of livelihood’ under which socioeconomic programs would be developed, poverty would be eradicated, and jobs would be created.

Speaking about the third corridor, which he called the “corridor of innovation, we had a special focus on artificial intelligence ((AI) and as everyone knows that the world was far away in this sector and China was also competing with the world, we would take advantage from Chinese’s experts and make Pakistan more reliable and self-sufficient in this sector.

The other corridor, he spoke was ‘corridor of the green economy’ in which we would tackle the challenges imposed by the environment and climate change. He also said we had to find a way to shift our energy sector from ‘fossil fuel’ to green energy, i.e., renewable resources.

In the last but not least, he said, the fifth corridor is the ‘corridor of regional development’ in which we would increase our regional cooperation and share the fruits of CPEC with other countries in the region by including them in the CPEC program, bringing prosperity and stability.

Regarding political stability and security measures for Chinese workers, he assured that we would take all necessary measures to protect the workers from any threat and political stability also be brought through dialogues.