Chinese president Warm Welcome in Pakistan on two day visit, Geo News Headlines 20 April 2015 Chinese president Xi Jinping on Monday has rea...
Chinese president Warm Welcome in Pakistan on two day visit, Geo News Headlines 20 April 2015 Chinese president Xi Jinping on Monday has reached Pakistan on a two-day visit which holds historic significance in context of the cooperation between the two countries. The Chinese aircraft landed at the Noor Khan Airbase. Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif and President Mamnoon Hussain welcomed Jinping. Chief of Air Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif, Air Chief Marshal Sohail Ahmed and Admiral Zakaullah were also present to welcome the Chinese president. The visit of Jinping is of great significance as agreements worth US $45 billion are to be signed between the two countries. With the plan, known as the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Beijing hopes to ramp up investments in Pakistan as part of its ambitions to expand its trade and transport footprint across Central and South Asia, while countering US and Indian influence. Pakistan, a Muslim majority country of 200 million that has been battling an Islamist insurgency for over a decade, hope the investments will spur its long-underperforming economy, which the IMF projects is set to grow 4.3 percent this year. The two allies have enjoyed close diplomatic and military relations for decades, though economic ties have only grown more recently. Bilateral trade crossed $12 billion dollars last year, compared to only $2 billion a decade earlier. "The real opportunity of this China Pakistan Economic Corridor is that it changes the scope of the relationship from geopolitics to geoeconomics," Ahsan Iqbal, the minister overseeing the projects, told AFP. The two countries are set to cooperate in natural gas, coal, and solar energy projects that will provide 16,400 megawatts of electricity -- roughly equivalent to the country s entire current capacity, said Iqbal. Pakistan has wrestled with chronic power shortages in recent years that have scrubbed several points off GDP growth and inflicted misery on the everyday lives of... Less
