ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi Thursday said that China will provide 0.5 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine as a “gift” to Pakistan by end January, and has also agreed to manufacture the vaccine in Pakistan.
Talking to media, Qureshi said he had a telephonic conversation with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on the instruction of Prime Minister Imran Khan.
“I want to give the nation the good news that China has promised to immediately provide 500,000 doses of coronavirus vaccine to Pakistan by January 31,” he said, adding that during his telephonic conversation with the Chinese counterpart, China offered Pakistan to send an airplane and airlift the vaccines.
Qureshi said he also briefed his Chinese counterpart that Pakistan requires 1.1 million doses of the vaccine in view of its large population, adding that Chinese side also promised to make available the required quantity of the medicine by the end of February 2021.
He said that first cache of the vaccine was a grant from China to be provided to Pakistan free of cost as a goodwill gesture.
“This is a hand of goodwill and friendship that China has extended towards us and I am grateful to them,” he said, adding China had also agreed to manufacture the coronavirus vaccine in Pakistan.
Qureshi said he and Foreign Minister Wang had discussed that trials of Chinese firm CanSino’s vaccine in Pakistan were successfully moving forward and their results had been quite encouraging.
“Pakistan has a huge population and in order to fulfill its needs, we also discussed whether we can move forward together for this [CanSino] vaccine’s production and manufacturing in Pakistan after the completion of the new trials,” he said, adding that Wang Yi had agreed to the proposal.
He further said the Chinese foreign minister further stated that China wanted to assure Pakistan that the cooperation will continue.
Qureshi said China had decided to work for the global public good in the context of Covid-19.
“Foreign Minister Wang told me the first country they thought of to assist was Pakistan keeping in view the all-weather strategic relationship between the two countries,” he added.
Meanwhile, according to a statement of the Foreign Office, Foreign Minister Qureshi represented Pakistan in the 17th Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) Ministerial Meeting which was held in a virtual format on Thursday.
In his address, Qureshi stated that ACD was a leading platform that had transformed into a robust institutional mechanism for dialogue and discussions among the member states on issues of mutual interest.
Highlighting the devastating repercussions of the Covid-19 pandemic on sustainable development and developing countries, Pakistan stressed the need to coordinate actions, benefit from each other’s experiences, and pool resources for responding to the pandemic and financing the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
He stated that Pakistan was open to share its experience and internationally-acknowledged approach in effectively combating the pandemic, and emphasized the need for the Covid-19 vaccine to become easily and equitably accessible to all.
Assuring full support to the ACD’s agenda on Tourism and Culture, being the Co-prime Mover, Pakistan stated that the theme “the New Normal and Safe and Healthy Tourism” will help in fostering networking, improving connectivity, and promoting tourism in the ACD Member States.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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