Foreign and Military Affairs

Pakistani PM set for China visit

By Wang Qingyun (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2011-05-17 09:23

Masood Khan, Pakistani Ambassador to China, speaks at a news conference in Beijing May 16, 2011. [Photo by Wang Qingyun/chinadaily.com.cn]

BEIJING - Pakistan looks forward to intensifying economic cooperation with China, said Masood Khan, Pakistani ambassador to China, at a news conference Monday afternoon.

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Khan introduced the schedule for Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani's trip to China. Gillani will arrive in Shanghai on Tuesday, and leave for Beijing a day later, where he will meet with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Chinese President Hu Jintao.

Gillani will also attend the launch ceremony of the China-Pakistan Entrepreneur Forum in Beijing, which is the first bilateral entrepreneurs forum, according to Khan.

Bilateral trade reached $8.7 billion last year, "but I think there's much more potential between Pakistan and China, and we must tap into that potential," said Khan. "We want to take it to the next level ... and the entrepreneurs forum will help us do that."

Khan also answered questions about Pakistan's anti-terrorism strategies after bin Laden's death.

He said, "Unauthorized unilateral action was one of regrets," and the Pakistani people and government are grateful to the Chinese government for supporting Pakistan to devise anti-terrorism strategies according to its national conditions.

Pakistan's Taliban launched a suicide bomb attack on a paramilitary school in northwestern Pakistan last Friday, as the first act of revenge for bin Laden's death. The organization also claimed Monday's killing of a Saudi Arabian diplomat in the Pakistani city of Karachi.