PM Shehbaz Sharif calls for expansion of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) at SCO summit

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif called on Wednesday for the expansion of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to enhance regional cooperation at a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Islamabad.

He was addressing a heads of government meeting of the SCO, a Eurasian security and political group formed in 2001, being attended by officials from 11 countries, including host Pakistan, China, Russia and India.

“Flagship projects like the Belt and Road Initiative of President Xi Jinping … should be expanded focusing on developing road, rail and digital infrastructure that enhances integration and cooperation across our region,” Shahbaz said in his speech as the chair of the meeting.

The BRI is a $1 trillion plan for global infrastructure and energy networks that China launched a decade ago to connect Asia with Africa and Europe through land and maritime routes.

More than 150 countries, including Russia, have signed up to participate in BRI since Xi unveiled it. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a part of the BRI and has seen Beijing pump in billions of dollars into the South Asian country for road networks, a strategic port and an airport.

Shahbaz said CPEC would also help enhance cooperation, adding that 40 per cent of the world’s population lived in SCO’s 10 full member states. He also called for a special development funding mechanism under the SCO. The SCO meeting is the highest-profile event hosted by the South Asian nation in years.

Seven prime ministers are attending, including Chinese Premier Li Qiang. Shahbaz also said stability in neighbouring Afghanistan, which lies between South and Central Asia, was essential to fully realising trade opportunities for the SCO member states.

Also in attendance was India’ External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, who is the first Indian foreign minister to visit Pakistan in nearly a decade.

Jaishankar, in his speech at the meeting, congratulated Pakistan on the presidency of the SCO’s Heads of Government Council and extended India’s “full support” to Islamabad, according to a transcript shared by India’s foreign ministry.

He said India supported regional cooperation but added that mutual respect as well as territorial integrity and sovereignty were essential.

“If activities across borders are characterised by terrorism, extremism and separatism, they are hardly likely to encourage trade, energy flows, connectivity and people-to-people exchanges in parallel,” he said in his speech.