Prime Minister Imran Khan spoke on telephone with President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China today.

The Prime Minister congratulated President Xi on the centenary of the Communist Party of China, the unprecedented victory in the Chinese people’s battle to eradicate absolute poverty, and appreciated China’s stellar development in four decades of reform and opening up. The two leaders also felicitated each other on the important milestone of the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Pakistan and China, reviewed the entire gamut of the bilateral strategic cooperative partnership, and discussed the regional and international situation.

The Prime Minister appreciated China’s successful containment of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as relief and assistance measures for the developing countries, including the vaccine cooperation with Pakistan. Taking stock of the negative impact of COVID-19 on the global economy, the two leaders agreed on further strengthening bilateral economic and commercial ties, including full realization of the potential offered by the Phase-II of the China-Pakistan Free Trade Agreement, to overcome the economic headwinds. The Prime Minister lauded the successful, timely and high-quality implementation of the CPEC projects, and welcomed Chinese investments in the CPEC Special Economic Zones. He underscored that early start of work on the ML-1 railway project would complement Pakistan’s geo-economics vision for national and regional development.

The Prime Minister also appreciated China’s leading role in combating climate change. He briefed President Xi on Pakistan’s wide ranging measures for climate change mitigation and adaptation, including the Ten Billion Tree Tsunami initiative. The two leaders agreed to strengthen Pakistan-China cooperation in the relevant areas and to promote CPEC’s green development as a high quality demonstration of the Belt and Road Initiative.

The two leaders discussed the situation in Afghanistan. They called on the international community to provide immediate humanitarian and economic assistance to the people of Afghanistan to alleviate their suffering, prevent instability and flight of people, as well as continued engagement for rebuilding of the country.

The Prime Minister stressed the need to continue with the momentum of high-level exchanges to further diversify “All Weather Strategic Cooperative Partnership” between the two countries. Prime Minister Khan renewed his invitation to President Xi to visit Pakistan at his early convenience.