ISLAMABAD, April 1: Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and ministers from 25 countries will participate in the 4th Asian Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) ministerial meeting here on April 6, Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri said at a press briefing on Friday. Part of a wider framework of the Strategic Vision East Asia, the meeting, to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, will be preceded by a seminar on April 5 on ‘Economic cooperation in Asia’.

Mr Kasuri said the dialogue provided a valuable window to forge closer economic linkages with the countries in the Association of South-East Asian Nations and beyond, which would strengthen Pakistan’s economic role in the region. He said the meeting would issue a declaration and approve the ‘Islamabad initiative on economic cooperation in Asia’. The documents would set forth the vision of common greater Asian neighbourhood, he said.

He said the Strategic Vision East Asia, launched in October 2003, responded to the emerging strategic and economic compulsions and sought to enhance the country’s economic and political profile in the region.

“This vision aims at establishing interlocking political and economic relations with the countries of Central, East and North-East Asia. Pakistan wants to integrate itself in the processes unfolding in greater East Asia, which are acquiring increasing economic and political weight. We are pursuing this in tandem with our efforts to galvanize both Saarc and ECO regions,” he said.

He said the regional cooperative frameworks that existed, like Asean, the Gulf Cooperation Council, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation and the Economic Cooperation Organization, lacked an arrangement for a continent-wide cooperation.

The ACD was a platform to pool the collective Asian strengths vis-a-vis other regional blocs, he said. He said Pakistan stood to gain more than anybody else as a result of Pan-Asian cooperation. “We are developing facilities in Gwadar. There is already a suggestion that the pipeline coming from Iran for India should also go to China,” he said.

He said the Chinese premier, who would address the inaugural session, was starting his four-nation tour of the region from Pakistan, which underscored the importance China attached to its friendship with the country.

Mr Kasuri said Pakistan had also focussed attention on acquiring membership of the Asia-Europe meeting and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation. He said Pakistan had also been invited to join the Shangrila Dialogue/Asian Security Conference, whose meeting was scheduled in June. Pakistan had acceded to the Asean Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, he said. He said Pakistan had signed memorandums of understanding on combating terrorism with Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Brunei.