Chinese president reschedules Pakistan visit due to COVID-19

ISLAMABAD: Chinese Ambassador Yao Jing said on Thursday that a planned visit to Pakistan of Chinese President Xi Jinping had been rescheduled due to the coronavirus pandemic, Pakistani media has reported.
While speaking to journalists at a local mall in Rawalpindi, Yao said the governments of China and Pakistan were working to finalize a new date for Xi’s visit, which would be announced soon. He said President Xi would visit Pakistan on the invitation of Prime Minister Imran Khan.
The envoy expressed satisfaction over progress in projects under the multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) agreement, saying both nations were aware of threats to the corridor posed by common ‘enemies’.
“We will not allow the enemies to succeed in their nefarious designs and CPEC projects will continue despite the challenge of COVID-19 on both sides,” Yao was quoted by Pakistani media as saying.
CPEC 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.
Separately on Thursday, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi met Yao and emphasized the need for greater cooperation between Pakistan and China in the agriculture sector.
There is a greater need to revamp and modernize agriculture sector with China’s co-operation and unleash the Second Green Revolution in Pakistan,” Qureshi said in a statement.
He said China in recent years had introduced wide-ranging reforms in its agriculture sector that had contributed significantly to the country’s GDP growth and strengthened and diversified its research and development capacity.
“It was imperative that Pakistan benefits from China’s experiences,” the statement said, adding that Qureshi said “deeper agriculture cooperation between China and Pakistan will lead to job creation, enhancing agricultural productivity, poverty alleviation and stimulating economic recovery in Pakistan in the aftermath of COVID-19.”
Welcoming the establishment of the Joint Working Group on Agriculture Cooperation under CPEC, Qureshi said the inclusion of agriculture under the CPEC umbrella would promote industrialization and modernization of the agriculture economy.