Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif has recently paid a twin-purpose visit to China –to hold meetings with the top leadership, and also to pursue Chinese investors to come and invest in Pakistan in different sectors, assuring them very tight security If all what had happened at Shenzhen and Beijing during his five-day visit materializes in due course of time, then it will augur well for the somewhat staggering national economy besides further strengthening and promoting the existing time-tested, all-weather, mutually trustworthy and enviable neighbourly best possible relations .
This was PM Shehbaz Sharif’s second visit to China after the maiden one undertaken in November 2022 and the longest of all his foreign visits so far..The visit more importantly also underscored Pakistan’s commitment to the existing deepening ties, with the launching of the next phase of great game changer China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), now in the second phase after successful completion of the first phase.
He had gone to China to pursue the Chinese investors following an appreciable shift in his government’s policy, though in somewhat delayed manner, of seeking investment and collaboration and no more loans and aid from friendly countries.
While the foreign investors and businessmen are quite willing to come and invest in different sectors in Pakistan, are we all ready to efficiently and actively take upon the massive workload that may be accruing in a sincere, dedicated and committed manner, brushing aside our decades old unwelcome habits of population growth, corruption and amassing ill-gotten wealth by all means?
In the first part of his visit, he inaugurated the Pak-China Business Conference in Shenzhen.He quite categorically and assertively assured and pledged resources, support to foreign investors like never before and vowed heightened security for Chinese citizens working in his country, prioritizing their safety..
In Beijing itself, the visiting Pakistani leader had very useful, free, in-depth and frank meetings with President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Qiqang and Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National Peoples’; Congress Zhao Leji.. What transpired in these high-level meetings duly reflected the existing warmest, sincerest and mutually beneficial relations between the two countries.
While Pakistan reaffirmed its commitment to the one-China principle and reiterated that Taiwan is an inalienable part of the People’s Republic of China, China reiterated its steadfast support to Pakistan in safeguarding its sovereignty , national independence and territorial integrity, in pursuing a development path suited to its national conditions and also in its efforts for safeguarding the national security, stability, development and prosperity, in firmly combatting terrorism and in playing a bigger role in the regional and international affairs.
During these meetings, top Chinese and Pakistani leadership agreed that both Pakistan and China are all weather strategic cooperative partners and iron brothers and have always understood, trusted and supported each other.. As regards CPEC, the two sides recognised that it has been a pioneering project of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)and after the successful completion of the first phase, they were now committed to carrying out the eight major steps for supporting the high quality BRI cooperation, forging an upgraded version of CPEC by jointly building a growth corridor, a livelihood-enhancing corridor, an innovation corridor, a green corridor and an open corridor, aligning with Pakistan’s SME framework based on exports, E-Pakistan, Environment , Energy and Equity and Empowerment for benefiting both countries and their peoples, working together and building CPEC into an exemplary project of BRI cooperation.
Pakistani and Chinese leaders also dilated upon the mega Railways project Main-Line (ML-1) envisaging rehabilitation and upgradation from Peshawar to Karachi, reaffirmed it as an important project under the CPEC framework which was of strategic significance to Pakistan’s socio-economic development, and agreed to actively explore advancing the project in a phased manner and start working on its financing modalities.
Needless to mention here that the ML-I project has been in doldrums for some time mainly due to its financing issue and China’s concessional financing. Its cost has recently been downwardly revised from $ 10 billion to more than $ 6 billion and three phases have been reduced to two phases.
Details of what had transpired and was agreed upon during talks between the Pakistani and Chinese leaderships, covering the vast spectrum of bilateral relations and expansion of the great game changer CPEC to more sectors need more space and may be mentioned some other time.
As briefly mentioned above, the focus of the prime minister’s visit in a major attempt to push for direly needed foreign direct investment was to business-to-business meetings and a determined effort to upgrade the CPEC.
Most significantly and importantly, it was being pointedly stated here that a record number of as many as 55 agreements and MoUs were signed on two different occasions during the five days of the visit.
Out of these 23 agreements and MoUs covering cooperation on CPEC, agriculture, infrastructure, industrial cooperation, inter-governmental development assistance, market regulation, surveying, media, film, and such like were signed in the presence of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif at the impressive ceremony at the Great People’s Hall by the delegation members from both sides.
And 32 agreements and memorandum of agreements in the fields of IT, textiles, leather and footwear, minerals, pharmaceuticals, agriculture and food processings on the sidelines of the Pakistan Business Conference in Shenzhen following meetings between the visiting Pakistani businessmen and host Chinese businessmen and investors.
While the foreign investors and businessmen are quite willing to come and invest in different sectors in Pakistan, are we all ready to efficiently and actively take upon the massive workload that may be accruing in a sincere, dedicated and committed manner, brushing aside our decades old unwelcome habits of population growth, corruption and amassing ill-gotten wealth by all means?
