"One Belt-One Road" Gigantic Infrastructure Of China To Link Up Asia With Europe, Africa: Mr. Wang Zihai

"One Belt-One Road" gigantic infrastructure of China to link up Asia with Europe, Africa: Mr. Wang Zihai

FAISALABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 25th Mar, 2017 ) : Pakistan China Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCJCCI) Lahore President Mr. Wang Zihai on Saturday said in new emerging economic scenario "One Belt-One Road" was a gigantic infrastructure of China to link up Asia with Europe and Africa and this project had already been successfully initiated from Pakistan.

He was addressing a meeting in Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FCCI) which was also attended by the business community as well as the students of Chinese language course. He said in first phase of CPEC (China Pakistan Economic Corridor) a comprehensive road network had been laid from Khanjrab to Gwadar.

In its second phase work was in progress for the erection of power plants throughout Pakistan, he added. He particularly mentioned 1320 MW coal power plant and said with its completion the menace of load shedding would be eliminated once for all in 2018.

He said Pakistan and China had inked 46 MOUs in different segments of economy while during fourth phase of this project, industrial cooperation would be enhanced. He termed it as one of the most important segment of the CPEC project as governments as well as the private sectors of the two countries had to play their role for its successful execution.

He said the governments would have to take decision that during this phase which industry should be installed. However, in this connection the private sector had to enter into joint ventures to establish the most required and agreed industry, he added.

He said Pakistan was a cotton producing country and hence it had huge potential to set up garment industry and hoped that in this connection the businessmen of both countries would cooperate for their mutual benefits.

He assured that PCJCCI would fully cooperate in linking and match making of the concerned entrepreneurs from the two countries. He also stressed the need to ink a MoU with FCCI so that the Chinese delegations visiting Pakistan could also visit Faisalabad and interact directly with business community of its businessmen.

He also invited FCCI delegation to visit PCJCCI, Lahore. Responding to a question, General Secretary PCJCCI Salah-ud-Din said only upper and upper middle class management from China would come to Pakistan for the execution of different projects in Pakistan.

"All the rest of the workers will be recruited from Pakistan," he added and also gave a brief resume of the PCJCCI. He said it had 250 members while its membership was open to all businessmen working or intending to work with the Chinese investors.

He further said the PCJCCI had already launched different programs in collaboration with TEVTA to impart much needed training to the semi skilled and unskilled workers so that they could be accommodated in the joint ventures to be launched in near future.

Responding to yet another question, he said Chinese language and cultural barriers were major hindrance in the economic cooperation of two countries at the private level and in this connection the PCJCCI had published a dictionary containing 10,000 frequently used words in Chinese.

He said apart from the investment of 55 billion Dollars under CPEC project, another 100 billion investment form private sector was also in the pipeline and the Pakistani entrepreneurs should play their proactive role to attract maximum investment.

Earlier, President FCCI Engineer Muhammad Saeed Sheikh briefly introduced Faisalabad and FCCI and said investment of 55 billion dollars had laid down a solid foundation for the economic and sustained cooperation between the two countries.

He hoped that two countries would launch maximum joint ventures which would generate economic activity and play a key role in weeding out poverty form this part of the world. He said in view of the enhanced economic relations, FCCI had launched Chinese language course which would bolster this relationship in the coming years.

He also thanked Mr. Wang Zihai for extending cooperation to launch the Chinese language course in FCCI. He said Faisalabad had also unique privilege to set up first CPEC Cell of the country that was analyzing the huge potential of this project.

In the end, Vice President FCCI and Chairman CPEC Cell Engineer Ahmad Hasan presented a book especially prepared by the CPEC Cell of the FCCI to President PCJCCI.