Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to visit Pakistan in June this year to hold talks on further deepening bilateral ties and strengthening the strategic partnership between the two countries.

Foreign Office sources said that both the sides are in touch at a diplomatic level to firm up the dates for President Xi Jinping's visit to Pakistan, in which the two sides would discuss ways to further deepen the strategic partnership and exchange views on the ongoing and additional projects under China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

The sources said that the Chinese President, during his visit to the country, would meet President Dr Arif Alvi and hold talks with Prime Minister Imran Khan on issues of mutual interest, regional situation as well as giving formal approval to the projects of the next phase of CPEC.

Both China and Pakistan are set to hold the 10th Joint Cooperation Committee (JCC) meeting in April under the CPEC framework to finalize different mega projects, including railways Mainline (ML-1) Karachi to Peshawar at a cost of $9.2 billion.

The government has already formed a committee under chairmanship of Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar to finalize the arrangements for the visit of Chinese president which is most likely to take place at the end of May or early June 2020.

Speaking at an event at the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad (ISSI), on Thursday last, Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Yao Jing hinted at convening the 10th JCC meeting via a video conference due to the inability of Chinese authorities to travel to Islamabad in the wake of Coronavirus breakout in his country.

"This is a temporary arrangement and we are hopeful that we will soon come out of the situations created by the Coronavirus," Ambassador Jing said adding that CPEC is the major part of Pakistan-China strategic partnership. He said that the leadership of the two countries are committed to implementing CPEC projects despite some "anti-voices", which he defined as Western propaganda.

He said that the next phase of CPEC is focusing on the social development of Pakistan with 17 fast-track projects aimed at improving the infrastructure of railways, industrial cooperation, agriculture, health and education, as well as some more energy projects.

The 10th JCC, according to the sources, will finalize the projects of the second phase of CPEC for subsequent approval by leadership of the two countries during the upcoming visit of President Xi Jinping.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020

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