BEIJING: China is ready to further expand imports from Pakistan, said Ren Hongbin, Vice Minister, Ministry of Commerce of China, Gwadar Pro reported on Monday.
Addressing the Bilateral Trade/Investment Forum, a sub-activity of the 18th China-ASEAN Expo held in Nanning, Ren Hongbin said that since the establishment of diplomatic ties 70 years ago, China and Pakistan have maintained vigorous relations and signed and implemented a series of agreements and guiding documents.
China has been Pakistan’s largest trading partner for six consecutive years. In the first half of 2021, two-way trade reached $12.65 billion. In 2020, China’s direct investment in Pakistan was $532.8 million, and China has been Pakistan’s largest source of foreign investment for many years in a row. In addition, bilateral anti-epidemic cooperation has achieved remarkable results, and a batch of important consensus has been reached on promoting trade and investment in order to rapidly recover the economy of the two countries in the post-epidemic era.” Ren added: “At a new historical starting point, China is ready to further deepen its economic and trade cooperation with Pakistan and continue to take positive measures to expand the import from Pakistan.
China hopes that Pakistan will make good use of CAEXPO and other platforms to actively display its products, technologies and services, further expand its export to China, promote sustained growth of bilateral trade, strengthen cooperation in infrastructure construction, mineral exploitation and other key areas, and push for deeper and more concrete China-Pakistan all-weather strategic cooperative partnership”, he added. The event was sponsored by China’s Ministry of Commerce, Pakistan’s Ministry of Commerce, the Government of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and the Pakistani Embassy in China.
The forum, themed “ Jointly building the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and sharing the opportunities of China-Pakistan economic and trade cooperation in the new era”, aimed to promote the high-quality development of BRI and CPEC and discusses how to make full use of CAEXPO to promote trilateral economic, trade and investment cooperation among China, Pakistan and ASEAN. – Agencies
