ISLAMABAD (PEN) : The recent conclusion of the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China has brought new opportunities for greater cooperation. Pakistan is one of the likely beneficiaries of China’s push for high-quality development as the two nations have strengthened their all-weather strategic cooperative partnership in recent years. Khalil Hashmi, Pakistan’s Ambassador to China, recently spoke to our reporter, Lin Nan, about the third plenum’s impact on bilateral ties.
KHALIL HASHMI, Pakistani Ambassador to China “China or Chinese leadership has decided to focus more on new quality productive forces, which means high quality development. That is something that will continue. This is one aspect of growth is important, but even more important is the new drivers of growth. So if, for example, 20 years ago, the economic growth drivers were manufacturing. Now it is digital and green technology and new materials. These are the new drivers of high quality development or China’s continuous path to modernization. The second thing I see is that in pursuing high quality development, the focus also remains on people. So it is a people-centered drive, and priority remains people. The third element is that China is positioning itself to make its economy and to make its supply chains resilient to the geopolitical tensions that are being created. So all in all, very thoughtful, very substantive. And we will all see the fruits of a lot of hard work that went into the deliberations of third plenum and the decision, the impact of the decision in the months and years ahead.”
LIN NAN, CGTN Reporter “In light of these new policies and directions outlined at the third Plenary Session, what areas of future collaboration should Pakistan and China focus on – to strengthen this partnership?”
KHALIL HASHMI, Pakistani Ambassador to China “China focuses more and more on high quality development and giving full play to new productive forces. These are things that are very much welcomed by Pakistan, and they are in line with what Pakistan has to offer. For example, we are a large country of 240 million people, nearly 60 % of our population is under 30 years of age. These are people who are English-speaking, who have very good IT skills, who are very good in absorbing and using new technology. So the focus in China, on innovation, on technology, on digital digitalization, or green technologies. That’s something that both countries can work together. And our younger population can contribute a lot in many ways.
The second is even in Pakistan, 2/3 of our GDP directly or indirectly is contributed by agriculture sector. There is also the high quality development in the field of agriculture. Again, integrating new technology, the innovations in technology into agriculture. That’s an area where both countries can work together. We have a lot of minerals that remain to be explored, whether they are copper or minerals or mining areas which are needed for producing new materials or the new energy sources. There are many areas we now see China making a lot of progress on, for example, artificial intelligence, internet of things, quantum computing, semiconductors. We have a large pool of scientists and people who are very good at it. This is another area of new and emerging technologies where both countries can collaborate for a win-win.”
