KARACHI: Economic cooperation and Afghanistan will be on top of the agenda of the upcoming visit of Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan to China, the Pakistani information minister said on Sunday.
Pakistan and China share strong friendly and economic ties, spearheaded by the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which has seen Beijing pledge over $60 billion for infrastructure projects in Pakistan, central to China’s wider Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to develop land and sea trade routes in Asia and beyond.
PM Khan is scheduled to visit China on February 3-5 to attend the opening ceremony of Beijing Winter Olympics and meet top Chinese leadership.
“We have deep strategic and economic relations with China, so every visit is significant. The primary purpose is to join China’s celebrations of Winter Olympics and the New Year,” Pakistani Information Minister Chaudhry Fawad Hussain told Arab News.
“PM will meet President Xi and Premier Li and CEOs of top Chinese companies. Therefore, economic agenda will be top of the list and at the same time, strategic issues especially Afghanistan will also be discussed.”
The Pakistani premier is visiting China after nearly two years.
“The prime minister is very serious about this visit and has directed all stakeholders to fully prepare for it and present our case to the Chinese in a very realistic way for the benefit of both sides,” Azfar Ahsan, the chairman of Pakistan's Board of Investment (BoI), told Arab News.
“We have identified our priority sectors and many projects through mutual consultations with our Chinese counterparts. These projects will be finalized by Tuesday.”
The BoI chief informed that foreign direct investment (FDI), strategic geopolitical issues and security situation would be part of discussions during the visit.
“Updates on CPEC progress and the line of action for the way forward will also be discussed,” he said.
Ahsan dispelled the notion that progress of the multi-billion-dollar corridor was slow-paced.
“Things relating to CPEC are moving at a faster pace,” Ahsan said. “It is propaganda against CPEC and many international powers are also involved in it.”
The Pakistani side is also preparing to take up one of the largest projects, the $6.8 billion Pakistan Railways Mainline-I or ML-1, with the Chinese authorities. The project has been facing continuous delays.
“Yes, the ML-1 issue will also be taken up during the visit,” the BoI chief said.
The visit of the Pakistani premier comes at a time when his country has posted record exports to China, but the bilateral trade is heavily tilted towards Beijing.
Pakistan’s exports to China increased by 68.9 percent to $3.58 billion in 2021, while Chinese exports to Pakistan increased by 57.8 percent to $24.23 billion, Chinese media reported, citing data from the General Administration of Customs of China (GACC).
However, the data compiled by the Pakistani central bank shows Pakistan received $2.5 billion in export payments from China in 2021, while payments made to Chinese exporters amounted to $16.13 billion. The two sets of data show a huge gap in exports.
“This (gap) is mostly because of under-invoicing by Pakistani importers. The data presented by Chinese authorities depicts the exact flow of the trade between two countries,” Jawaid Ilyas, chairman of the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry's (FPCCI) Pak-China Business Council, said.
He said due to hidden barriers in China, exports from Pakistan were not increasing despite the two countries being the biggest trading partners.
“We have observed that Chinese exports to Pakistan have multiplied but our exports to China have not increased comparatively,” Ilyas said. “There are hidden barriers, for instance licensing permits for rice imports, due to which despite our desire exports are not increasing.”
He said the prime minister should also take up the issue of these hidden barriers with Chinese authorities: “This is very important for Pakistan to address the issue.”
Ilyas lamented that the Chinese were investing in other neighboring countries after high-tech product manufacturing at home, but Pakistan was missing from their radar.
“China is now shifting low-value product manufacturing to other countries and we have seen that Chinese have made huge investments in Thailand and Vietnam, but we have not seen such investment in Pakistan,” he explained.
The Pak-China Business Council chairman was disappointed that they were not consulted for the preparation of PM Khan’s China visit.
“PM is going to China but I don’t know to what extent he has coordinated with the business community. In Pakistan, the government and business community are moving on their own paths without any coordination,” he said.
Ilyas suggested the prime minister should also be looking to attract some of the 80,000 workable industries that Chinese authorities have shut down over environmental concerns.
