PM Shehbaz to depart for China on two-day official visit

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will leave Pakistan today for two-day trip to China, his first state visit to the neighbouring nation after assuming office in April, where he will meet President Xi Jinping, just a week after he cemented his place as the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong.

The Foreign Office said it would be a two-day trip, being undertaken at the invitation of Sharif’s Chinese counterpart Li Keqiang, and that Sharif would be joined by Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and high-ranking officials of his administration.

The visit follows Sharif’s meeting with Jinping on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Uzbekistan on September 16.

It represents the continuity of frequent leadership-level exchanges between Pakistan and China. In Beijing, the prime minister will meet Jinping, and hold delegation-level talks with Keqiang.

During the engagements, the two governments will review the so-called “All-Weather Strategic Cooperation Partnership” and exchange views on regional and global developments.

Sharif is also likely to raise its debt issues after the country asked China to roll over its $6.3 billion debt on Saturday. The two nations signed a loan facility agreement in June, with Chinese banks lending $2.3 billion to Pakistan to help boost its reserves.

The visit is also expected to advance the wide-ranging bilateral cooperation agenda with the conclusion of a number of agreements in diverse fields.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson of the Chinese foreign ministry, Wang Wenbin, said Sharif was among the first foreign leaders to be invited to Beijing after last week’s Communist Party congress, at which Jinping secured a third term as its chief and unveiled a new leadership line-up.

“China and Pakistan are all-weather strategic partners and ‘hardcore’ friends,” Wang told reporters in Beijing on Wednesday, according to South China Morning Post.

“China looks forward to working with Pakistan to use this visit as an opportunity to further promote all-weather and high-level strategic cooperation, to build a closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future in the new era, and to make greater contributions to maintaining regional peace and stability, and international fairness and justice.”