BEIJING – Prime Minister Imran Khan arrived in China on his first visit as the premier late Thursday, with a special focus on learning how to eliminate corruption and weed out poverty.
In an interview with Chinese media, the premier said Pakistan could learn more from China than any other developed country in the world to tackle the various socio-economic challenges because China too went through a lot of problems that Pakistan faces right now.
The Prime Minister, who left on a four-day official visit to China said that low crime was easy to check but tackling white collar crime needed speciality and expertise which Pakistan was struggling.
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The Prime Minister said that since President Xi Jinping came to power, over 400 big names and powerful people have been convicted of corruption and that is the number one area which he hoped to learn during the China tour.
“Second is the poverty alleviation, just what China has achieved, no country in the human history has managed to achieve getting 700 million people out of poverty in 30 years,” he remarked.
The Prime Minister said as the main point of PTI’s manifesto was to bring people out of poverty it was one area where he looked forward to meeting with Chinese leadership and learn from all the steps taken to take people out of poverty.
He said with Pakistan having oldest relationship with China, it was the only friendly country in the world on whom people in Pakistan felt they could always depend in the hour of need.
“We have very special relations with China. The people of Pakistan have always looked upon China very positively as a friend,” he observed.
The Prime Minister said China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) had given a great opportunity to Pakistan to bring in foreign investment and to get out of the difficult economic situation it was facing.
“Since China has recently developed, we can identify lot of problems that we are facing right now, and which China managed to remove and moved ahead. So we can learn more from China than any other country,” he maintained.
PM Khan said there were other things like urban development, pollution and so many things that Pakistan faced and could benefit from the Chinese experience, adding, China has developed very fast in the area of agriculture.
The Prime Minister said Pakistan could learn from China to raise its agricultural yields and help its farmers and remove rural poverty.
He said with Pak-China trade balance currently in favor of China, Pakistan wanted to get help from China for pushing the country’s exports and address its one of the main problems of the current account deficit.
The Prime Minister described his visit to China as a great opportunity and said that Pakistan Pavilion at Shanghai International Import Expo would be exhibiting Pakistan’s export items.
“We also have other exports including agricultural products, sports goods, surgical equipment, leather products,” he added.
The Prime Minister said CPEC was going in stages including roads, development of Gwadar, which was the second deepest port after Singapore, and some power projects that became part of CPEC.
Talking about the economic challenges including the current account deficit and declining foreign exchange reserves, the Prime Minister said, his government was following a two-pronged strategy including approaching friendly countries for financial assistance and putting the option of IMF at the end to avoid the tough conditions of the Fund.
He said with Saudi Arabia being very generous, Pakistan had asked another friendly country the United Arab Emirates to help the country bolster its foreign exchange reserves.
