ISLAMABAD, Oct 6: Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao is expected to visit Pakistan before the end of this year to inaugurate the Gwadar Deep Seaport being developed with the Chinese assistance.
Disclosing this, former foreign minister Agha Shahi on Tuesday proposed signing of a transit trade agreement with China for reciprocal movement of Pakistani and Chinese trucks to Xinjiang and Lahore and Peshawar for enhancing bilateral trade and economic relations.
Lt-Gen (retd) Kamal Matinuddin, however, proposed that if Pakistan wanted to enhance its exports to China, it would have to improve the quality of goods. They were speaking here at a function organized by the Pak-China Friendship Forum (PCFF) and the Islamabad Council of World Affairs (ICWA).
Mr Shahi, who is also chairman of both the PCFF and the ICWA, said economic relations between the two countries did not match the friendly political relations, although Pakistan could benefit a lot from China's $800 billion of international trade.
He said Pakistan-China bilateral trade amounted to $2.5 billion but it was heavily tilted in favour of China as Pakistan's exports amounted to just a few million dollars a year.
On the other hand, China-India bilateral trade was increasing by $2 billion every year and now stood at $8 billion and their economic relations were getting stronger.
Mr Shahi said the government as well as the businessmen community should step up their efforts to increase exports and trade relations and invited specific proposals from the businessmen in this regard.
He said Chinese business delegations had been discouraged because of law and order situation in which they lost some Chinese engineers and because of higher power tariffs and bureaucratic problems.
He said unless these problems were overcome and trade and economic relations with China are strengthened, Pakistan's importance to China could diminish with its peaceful rise as an economic and military power in the world.
Former foreign minister Abdul Sattar said China was very receptive to ideas from Pakistan for economic and trade cooperation and said it should be taken up with the government authorities as to why the two-way transportation between the two countries could not take place unhindered when Pakistan had no security concerns about Chinese vehicles at border.
Senator Amin Dadabhoy said the time had come for the private sector in Pakistan to rise to the occasion and play a role in promoting industrial joint ventures and develop trade.
He said his industrial group has recently concluded major agreements with China to set up a 200-mw coal-based power station in Sindh and to add a 500-ton per day of white cement plant to industrial estate at Nooriabad.
He deplored that current Chinese exports constitute over 90 per cent of total $250 million border trade and added Pakistan should provide transit facilities to Western China for which new highways and ports were being developed.
Khalid Rahman, Executive Director of the Institute of Policy Studies, recommended that Karakoram Highway should be opened immediately for transit goods and transport and said as a first step, transit of goods should be allowed and transit of foreign cargo vehicles could be allowed in the second phase.
He said the facilities for quick clearance of transit goods should be provided at Sust and Karachi port and foreign trucks should be allowed to enter and exit Pakistan through KKH till Karachi. He also called for allowing foreign exchange remittances of freight charges and private bonded carriers should be allowed to carry transit goods.