PM invites Chinese companies to relocate industries to Pakistan under win-win partnership model

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday invited Chinese companies and entrepreneurs to relocate their industries and businesses to Pakistan, form joint ventures with local companies and benefit from the country’s investor-friendly policies, describing the initiative as a “win-win model” for both nations.

Addressing the Pakistan-China B2B Investment Conference on IT and Telecom, Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) and Agriculture in Hangzhou, China, the Prime Minister said that labor in China today had become quite expensive and China was obviously moving towards a very high level of industrialization.

He noted that industry in which China was no longer competitive due to expensive labor could come to Pakistan, bring plants and machinery, form joint ventures with Pakistani businessmen, manufacture goods and export to third countries.

“This model will be beneficial for Chinese and Pakistani businessmen, and will be a resounding success in the future, whether in the textile, leather or other sectors,” said the prime minister in his speech broadcast on national television networks.

He also invited Chinese businessmen to visit the export zone in Karachi, where they will have great opportunities to understand the business propositions.

Referring to the potential of mines and minerals, he said that it was also a very important area where Pakistan had large deposits of minerals and precious stones.

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On the agricultural sector, he said Pakistan was basically an agrarian economy. Last year they sent 1,000 boys and girls to China for advanced training, who returned and are doing a great job, but this was only the first step.

The Prime Minister emphasized that they really needed to move forward and have opportunities to improve their yield per acre, have the highest quality seeds, better agricultural practices and mechanization through which they could really advance their agricultural sector in many aspects.

China imports agricultural products worth about 100 billion dollars from abroad, he said. Pakistan’s participation was only a fraction, adding that they needed its cooperation in this regard.

The Prime Minister hoped that in this way they could produce agricultural products as per their requirements in terms of quality and other controls and if they worked together as iron brothers in this sector, they could not only provide huge job opportunities in rural areas of Pakistan but could also form hundreds of thousands of small and medium entrepreneurs in rural areas and add value and export those items to China.

In the next five to seven years, he said, they expected to increase their trade in agricultural products with China by around $10 billion, which was not a big task.

Prime Minister Shehbaz said that IT and AI had huge potential while special economic zones were also very important and shared that in the port city of Karachi, they had come up with a special economic zone that would be spread over more than 6,000 acres of land, where all basic amenities would be provided so that Chinese investors and Pakistani businessmen together could invest there.

He said this special economic zone would have modern infrastructure, smooth business environment and offer red carpet treatment and one-stop operation to the Chinese.

“I would like to offer all of you this opportunity to come forward, and we are going to offer you land on a long-term lease basis,” he added.

The Prime Minister further explained that it would be given on long-term lease on very attractive terms and conditions. This world-class special economic zone and model would be replicated in other parts of Pakistan thanks to the huge Chinese contribution.

The Prime Minister said that Pakistan was looking for knowledge, experience, investments and not loans, not aid, not handouts, because handouts and aid never made a nation vibrant, never made a nation stand on its own two feet.

Prime Minister Shehbaz further said that under the very dynamic leadership of President Xi Jinping, their friendship was deeper than the deepest ocean and higher than the Himalayas, but since they launched their space programme, it had reached new heights.

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The prime minister said they had signed MOUs worth billions of dollars, starting in Shenzhen and here in Hangzhou, and stressed that those MOUs now needed to become agreements.

He also expressed his satisfaction to learn that 30% of these MOUs had become agreements, undoubtedly amounting to billions of dollars.

The prime minister said that the friendship between Pakistan and China dates back to the days of the Silk Road.

“Now everything works through digitalization, and China excelled in this field more than any other country in the world, and Pakistan is a great partner because it has a very young population,” he said.

Chief Minister Shehbaz said they had undertaken programs at the federal and provincial levels, empowering youth in universities and schools, providing them with third-party international training and certification to get them into highly productive jobs.

The Prime Minister further said that it was no coincidence that they were celebrating 75 years of the great friendship between Pakistan and China, and this third consecutive B2B event, from Shenzhen to Beijing and now here in Hangzhou, was a reflection of the same.

He also appreciated the beauty of the city, its organization, structure and wonderful management, adding that the city undoubtedly showed the traces of President Xi Jinping, who as governor and general secretary of the city between 2002 and 2007 did a remarkable job in transforming this province and this city into one of the fastest growing cities in the world.

The Prime Minister said that President Xi Jinping is a visionary leader who, over the years, has made China an unsurpassed world-class economic and military power and Pakistan, as a true and sincere friend of China, takes great pride in this.

Earlier, IT Minister Shaza Fatima Khawaja, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Industries and Production Haroon Akhtar, Omar Saeed, CEO of Servis Group Pakistan and Chairman Jin Yongsheng of Long March Tyre, Qian Xiaojun, Chairman of IBI Goulian Gufen also spoke on the occasion and highlighted major prospects for joint ventures and cooperation in various sectors and shared their experiences.

Later, the prime minister also witnessed the signing of pacts between companies from the two countries.