World News | Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to Visit China Next Month

Islamabad, Oct 19 (PTI) Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will embark on a crucial trip to China next month amidst efforts by the cash-strapped nation to arrange billions of dollars for payment of debts and bridge trade deficit, it emerged on Wednesday.

Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal confirmed the visit while addressing the media person in Islamabad.

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He said that Sharif's “visit to China next month is expected to give a new impetus to China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project”.

However, according to diplomatic sources, the Prime Minister would seek relaxation in the payment of Chinese debt after the decision that the country would not go to the Paris Club for rescheduling its USD 27 billion debt.

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The Paris Club is a group of officials from major creditor nations whose role is to find coordinated and sustainable solutions to the payment difficulties experienced by debtor countries.

Pakistan owes Paris Club countries a combined sum of around USD 10.7 billion.

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Pakistan's total non-Paris Club bilateral debt currently stands at about USD 27 billion, of which Chinese debt is about USD 23 billion.

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said that Pakistan needed around USD 34 billion during the current year to pay off debts and meet the current account deficit.

However, the planning minister said that no progress was made on the CPEC projects during the previous government led by Imran Khan. He said Prime Minister Sharif would try to expedite work on those schemes.

Launched in 2013, the CPEC is a corridor linking Pakistan's Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea with Kashgar in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, which highlights energy, transport and industrial cooperation.

The USD 60 billion CPEC is part of China's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a pet project of President Xi Jinping.

China has historically come to Pakistan's rescue with economic, political, and military assistance and the leadership of the two countries has often described their ties as “all-weather”.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)