Pakistan eases visa facility for Chinese investors

 

ISLAMABAD, Dec. 15  – Pakistan has ordered to ease visa facility for Chinese investors to attract investment in the country, Gwadar Pro reported on Tuesday.

According to Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed that directions in this regard had been issued.

“The directives have been issued to ease visa facility for the Chinese investors. This is aimed at attracting investment in the country,” Ahmed said.

The Interior Minister expressed the commitment to making efforts towards bringing improvement in law and order in the country to facilitate the investors.

Over the weekend, Faisalabad Industrial Estate Development and Management Company (FIEDMC) chairman Mian Kashif Ashfaq said more than 25 Chinese companies had signed accords to invest in Allama Iqbal Industrial City, Faisalabad alone.

Chairing a meeting, Mian Kashif said several Chinese and other foreign companies were in contact with the FIEDMC for investment in the city.

He said the Punjab provincial government had promised full cooperation to FIEDMC, which was playing due role in fulfilling the prime minister’s mission.

Separately, Federal Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry said Pakistan had become an attractive market for the Chinese investors through China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

The minister said that CPEC projects had a great future and it would change the fate of the region along bringing economic prosperity. He said, “we welcome Chinese investors in Pakistan”.

The minister disclosed that his ministry has planned to uplift semi-conductor industry and bring value addition to Pakistan’s own products with the cooperation of Chinese friends.

The minister said Pakistan was also focusing on renewable energy which is the future for Pakistan’s power system.

He said in this regard, his ministry has approached the Chinese companies to shift their solar panel manufacturing units to Pakistan.

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Chinese ambassador extends support to PM’s vision for green Pakistan

 

ISLAMABAD, DEC 14 /DN/– Three-member delegation led by Ambassador of China to Pakistan Nong Rong called on Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam, on Monday.

Matters of bilateral interest including environmental sustainability, climate resilience and renewable energy came under discussion.

Meanwhile, China’s ambassador said that his government is also committed to extend support to the green vision of Prime Imran Khan and his remarkable green initiatives including the Green Stimulus, a post-COVID-19 green recovery initiatives for restoring people’s lives and livelihood affected by the pandemic.

Moreover they discussed in detail various matters for enhanced bilateral cooperation and opportunities pertaining to the fields of post-Covid-19 green economic recovery in Pakistan by enhancing investment in nature-based solutions and green job creations, environmental sustainability, climate resilience, forest management, air pollution, water conservation and disaster risk reduction,”.

Chinese Ambassador told PM’s aide Malik Amin Aslam that it’s heartening that Prime Minister’s Imran Khan’s vision for green Pakistan is perfectly aligned to the Chinese President Xi Jinping’s vision for green China. “However, we as a Chinese government see a huge scope and opportunities of working jointly to promote the common green vision for enhanced environmental sustainability and climate resilience against various adverse impacts of climate change on water, energy, food, health and education sectors,” the Chinese ambassador said.

Both sides also agreed to make China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) a model green belt and road initiative by calling it China-Pakistan Green Economic Corridor, so that environment is taken care of while implementing the game-changer project of regional connectively and economic development. Malik Amin Aslam informed the ambassador that an ambitious Protected Areas Initiative, approved by the Prime Minister, has been already launched under the umbrella programme ‘Clean Green Pakistan’, which is the present government’s historic milestone for nature conservation and promotion of nature-based solutions and creation of green jobs in the country.

It aims to expand the country’s protected areas cover from 13 percent to more than15 percent by 2023 and create 5,000 green jobs across the country that are viewed as crucial in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic, while at the same time safeguarding the country’s natural resources. While sharing more details of the green and clean Pakistan initiatives launched under the Prime Minister’s Imran Khan’s vision for Clean and Green Pakistan, Malik Amin Aslam told the Chinese envoy Nong Rong that the climate change ministry has kicked-off several flagship programmes and projects including the world’s largest afforestation programme of 10 Billion Tree Tsunami Programme, Clean Green Pakistan Programme, Protected Areas Initiative, Plastic-Free Pakistan Initiative, Recharge Pakistan Initiative as a part of the country’s efforts to achieve environmental sustainability and climate resilience through conservation and protection of environment, forests and wildlife, wherein community and youth engagements are being assigned the top priority.

The Chinese envoy appreciated the present government’s green and clean initiatives, ambitious 10 Billion Tsunami Programme, protection and conservation programmes of environment, wildlife and Pakistan recharge programme for enhancing country’s resilience against deleterious fallouts of climate change on water, energy, agriculture, food security, energy, health, education and lives and livelihoods of the vulnerable rural and mountain communities. China’s ambassador Nong Rong remarked that Pakistan’s green and clean initiatives are truly inspiring initiated despite tight economic conditions “Its really incredible and inspiring that despite limited financial resources, Pakistan has launched world-acclaimed green stimulus initiative, which has led to creation of thousands of green jobs for those rendered unemployed due to COVID-19 pandemic,” the the ambassador stressed during the meeting with PM’s aide Malik Amin.

He told the PM’s aide that the Chinese government, however, would deploy its financial, technological and knowledge resources to support Pakistan through its experiences in overall COVID-19 crisis management and post COVID-19 green recovery through enhanced investment in green sectors including forestry environmental protection and climate change resilience through mitigation and adaptation initiatives in the country’s climate-vulnerable socio-economic sectors.

Malik Amin Aslam also told the the Chinese ambassador that he appreciates his government’s interest and its offer to extend support to the green and clean initiatives launched under the Prime Minister Imran Khan vision for clean and green Pakistan under the 10 Billion Tree Tsunami Programme for overall environmental conservation and protection and Pakistan’s climate resilience building.

“It’s, of course, our pleasure to hear that the Chinese government is looking towards opportunities for jointly working and sharing its experiences regarding promotion of clean and renewable energy, environmental conservation, air pollution mitigation, climate change mitigation and adaptation, efficient water management and disaster risk reduction,” Malik Amin emphasised. He remarked that the world today has been forced to accept that it is the destruction of wildlife habitats as well as the degradation of the world’s ecosystems that are the root cause of the pandemic — COVID-19.

“However, this ongoing catastrophe is painfully reminding us that collectively we no longer have a choice but to take care of the natural limits and boundaries of our coexistence with other species. Nature, while reclaiming lost space, seems to be rebalancing our relationship with it,” he highlighted.=DN

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China bails out Pak to repay Saudi debt

 

• This is the second time China has come to Pakistan’s rescue. Earlier this year, Islamabad repaid $1 billion to KSA in the first quarter of the current fiscal year

ISLAMABAD, DEC 14 - China has agreed to immediately provide $1 to $1.5 billion financing line to Pakistan, allowing Islamabad to repay $1 billion to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia this week.

This is the second time China has come to Pakistan’s rescue. Earlier this year, Islamabad repaid $1 billion to KSA in the first quarter of the current fiscal year. With the latest repayment, Pakistan has so far repaid $2 billion out of the total $3 billion debt. Islamabad had paid mark up of over 3 percent on SAFE deposit.

The last tranche of $1 billion will be repaid next month. When contact, a Ministry of Finance official said “these are bilateral confidential matters”.

But top official privy to the development said the financing arrangement was part of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme and the lending body had sought written and verbal guarantees that these bilateral financing arrangements would be rolled over during package period.

IMF Mission Chief for Pakistan Ernesto Ramirez Rigo had flown to Beijing to get Chinese endorsement to make it a part of financing plan at the time of signing of the IMF agreement.

The money had been deposited in State Bank of Pakistan on December 15 2018 with a three years maturity period. Islamabad is repaying the amount ahead of schedule.

With new facility, Pakistan’s reliance on China increases. The country’s financial account has already turned negative of $1.33 billion because of outflow of dollars.

So far, increased remittances helped Islamabad to avoid an eruption of full fledged balance of payment (BoP) crisis as remittances from abroad remained over $2 billion over the last consecutive five months.

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COURTESY DNA NEWS

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China-SA on-line Expo held, enabling 181 Pakistani exhibitors start business

 

Kunming (China), DEC 13 – China-South Asia On-line Expo held this year, that enabled 181 Pakistani exhibitors to start their online business, Gwadar Pro reported on Sunday.

According to the report, on December 12th, the Everlasting China-South Asia Online Expo 2020 kicked off. This year, free online booths were provided to all exhibitors.

Online expo has more potential. In the offline exhibition he can not display all of his products, while the online expo gives him opportunities to show more,” said Farooq Ahmed, a Pakistani exhibitor of a clothes company.

Pakistan’s Commercial Consuler in Beijing was making efforts to inviting more Pakistani exhibitors to participate.” Farooq said in an interview with Gwadar Pro.

The official website of the online expo shows that 181 Pakistani online exhibitors participate in the online expo. Among them, there are a lot of Pakistani food companies, which were uncommon in the Kunming expo before.

Farooq hoped  that the organizers will help the exhibitors to open the online business in China after the expo.

“Cooperating with JD.com, we have developed a digital platform for this online expo with the functions of exhibiting, negotiating and trading,” said Zhao Ruijun, head of the Department of Commerce of Yunnan Province.

“After the expo, the platform will keep providing online services for the exhibitors, ” he added.

Meanwhile, according to another Gwadar Pro’s report one ton of Chili seeds sent to Lahore，Pak-China Chili cooperation formally kicked off this winter.

“Chilies are very important in Sichuan cuisine and hotpot. ”said Mahmood Akhtar, deputy consul general of Pakistan in Chengdu.

“Pakistan’s temperature and soil conditions are very suitable for good quality food. Chili cooperation is specifically suitable for Sichuan and Pakistan.

According to Mahmood Akhtar, people were planning to introduce and grow chilies this year in Pakistan and then export to China. ”

The results of our experiment in growing chilies in Lahore and Karachi last year were very successful, and the product quality was not much different from that in China,” said Chen Li，chairman of Sichuan Litong Food.

“This month we just shipped a ton of chili seeds to Lahore, and more than 3,000 mu of land will be cultivated for chili.”

“This project is our cooperation with CMEC and a Pakistani agricultural company Fetima. We provide seeds and send technicians to Pakistan to train Fetima staff with planting technology.

After the chilies are ripe, they are naturally dried and then shipped back to China for further processing. Chen Li told Gwadar Pro that in addition to bring economic benefits, this project will also boost local employment. “In August next year, we will start planting in Karachi, she said.

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Swat valley getting closer to China’s Xinjiang region

 

ISLAMABAD, DEC 12 - The people of Swat valley and China’s region Xinjiang getting closer to each other, through their growing business contacts, says a report published by China Economic Net (CEN).

According to the report, the two sides enjoy centuries-old cultural and business ties. If someone looking for a variety of Chinese goods in northwestern Pakistan, the Mingora bazaar in the Swat district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) is the right place.

From clothing, footwear, baby toys, watches, cellphones, and their parts to electrical equipment, Mingora’s markets are flooded with quality Chinese goods.

Shaukat Sharar, Swat-based architect and historian told CEN that the people of Swat have been traditionally traveling through GB to Xinjiang to bring goods.

According to him, some people from both the regions had also entered into marital relations and “there is still some Pashtun population in Xinjiang”.

Currently, Mingora Bazaar is home to a number of markets and shops selling Chinese products. Popular markets dealing in Chinese goods in Mingora city, include Swat China Market, Pak-China Market, Mehmood Khan China Market, Shanghai Cloth Market, and Abaseen Plaza, etc.

There are hundreds of shops and street vendors in Mingora city selling Chinese products. The majority of the shopkeepers use the suffix or affix of the word “China” while naming their businesses, e.g. “Pak-China Cloth Centre”, “Insaf-China General Store”, “China Traders”, “China Toys Center”, and “China Hosiery Store”.

Riaz Ahmed is a trader in Mingora city who runs his business over Kanju Road and sells umbrellas. He started his business in 1992 and to become a successful trader, he learned the basics of the Chinese language as well.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, he has not visited China since early 2020. “Earlier, groups of traders from Swat would regularly visit China to buy goods but now we place orders over the phone and receive goods via cargo service,” he told CEN, adding that due to coronavirus, business activities have reduced by almost 40%.

According to Riaz Ahmad, the majority of traders from Swat import goods from Kashgar (Xinjiang), Hangzhou, Yiwu (Zhejiang), and Guangzhou cities. Until 2002-03, the traders of Swat would use only land routes to import Chinese goods.

Muhammad Ali, age 68, is one of those shopkeepers who started visiting China by land route in 1989-90. First, a hi-ace (van) would take them to Gilgit from Swat; from Gilgit, they would travel to Sost in small vehicles followed by their journey to Khunjerab Pass (border crossing between China and Pakistan).

Adnan Ali, a senior official of the Swat Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) told CEN that thousands of people in Swat valley earn their livelihood in trading Chinese goods. According to him, around 800 shops are selling Chinese products in Mingora city.

At least 3,000 people are directly involved in these businesses while thousands of others indirectly earn from the business of importing and selling Chinese products.

“Around 300 businessmen from Swat go directly to China for business purposes while many others place orders via phone and receive their products via cargo service,” he said.

Mingora city attracts customers from all around KP and from Punjab province as well. “Here we find a variety of products while prices are comparatively cheaper,” Shahida Bibi told CEN. She had come to Swat China Market from Lower Dir district.

Saleem Rehman traveled 108 kilometers from Mardan city in KP to buy baby toys for his shop from Mehmood Khan China Market in Mingora.

The business community of Mingora demands the Government of Pakistan to start direct flights from Kabal Airport Swat to China to reduce travel expenses and time, the report added.

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