April 10, 2008	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 3, 1429

LAHORE, April 9: Former foreign minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri says it’s a pity that the PML-N has thought it advisable not to send its representatives with President Musharraf for his visit to China beginning on Thursday.

Talking to Dawn here on Wednesday, he said the visit would have provided the minister for finance an opportunity to rub shoulders with various world leaders in a very friendly setting during their meeting in an economic forum.

Kasuri, who is also senior vice-president of the PML-Q, said the president’s visit was very important as it was his first after the Feb 18 vote. China, he said, was very anxious to meet the president and the ministers accompanying him.

He said the depth of relations between Pakistan and China could be gauged from the fact that during his last visit there as foreign minister he was pleasantly surprised when the country’s prime minister told him that he would be taken to China’s space facility and that he would be the first ever foreign personality to visit the place. This, he said, showed the level of confidence between the two countries.

Kasuri said private entrepreneurs of China were serious about investment in Pakistan, for which the Islamic Republic had already dedicated an investment zone. The leaders of the two countries had always said that relations between the two countries were higher than mountains and deeper than oceans. But, he recalled, during his tenure as foreign minister the two sides had held several brainstorming sessions and concluded that the bilateral ties were far too important to be nurtured by sentiments alone.

He said it was decided by the two countries to underpin this relation to enhance economic and cultural cooperation so that the future generations could keep them as robust as ever. He said both countries had decided to take concrete steps in political and economic fields and signed agreements to increase the volume of bilateral trade manifold.

“We also asked China to relocate their industry in Pakistan. That’s why I feel that the finance minister should have found this visit very rewarding.” In his opinion there was also a possibility of China setting up refineries in and around Gwadar.