Pakistani president highlights strengthened cooperation with China under CPEC

ISLAMABAD, Sept. 12 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani President Arif Alvi stressed the need to strengthen cooperation with China in multiple fields under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the President House Media Wing said on Tuesday.

At a meeting with Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Jiang Zaidong on Tuesday, the president appreciated China's long-term support for Pakistan's development, saying that the China-Pakistan friendship has been unique and deeply rooted in the hearts of the people for decades.

Alvi said Pakistan wants to maintain close exchanges with China and deepen mutually beneficial cooperation, in particular, to learn from China's development experience.

The president said Pakistan will actively promote the construction of CPEC, and expand cooperation in agriculture, mining, information technology to benefit the two peoples.

Jiang said that under the strategic guidance of the leaderships of the two countries, China-Pakistan relations have maintained high-level development, all-round, in-depth cooperation has been carried out, and the construction of CPEC has moved toward high-quality development.

The ambassador said he would fulfill his duties, implement high-level consensus between the two countries, and make active efforts to build a closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future.

Jiang, who arrived in Pakistan on Sept. 5 to take up his new post, presented his credentials to the president before the meeting.

Launched in 2013, CPEC, the flagship project of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, is a corridor linking the Gwadar port in southwestern Pakistan with Kashgar in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, which highlights energy, transport and industrial cooperation.