ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan-China bilateral trade and Pakistan’s exports to China are both running at record levels for the year to-date, a Chinese official said.

The economic and trade cooperation between China and Pakistan are mutually beneficial and has delivered tangible benefits to the people of the two countries, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said during his regular briefing in response to a question asked by APP.

Since the beginning of the current year, the bilateral trade volume between Pakistan and China and volume of Pakistan’s exports to China registered historical highs, he said.

Wenbin said that China stands ready to work together with Pakistan to deepen all round cooperation, including in trade and investments and to deliver greater benefits to the people of both countries.

Chinese Consul General in Karachi Li Bijian during his visit to the Korangi Association of Trade and Industry (Kati) on Monday had highlighted that there were ample trade opportunities in China for Pakistani industrialists and investors.

Pakistan can export fruits, vegetables to China, while China has a large seafood market, including rice and fish from which Pakistani exporters could take full advantage.

He said the two countries could work out a strategy to increase Pakistan’s export volume through trade, urging Pakistani industrialists to take advantage of the free trade agreement between the two countries.

Meanwhile, observers said that the strengthened cooperation in infrastructure, especially for the construction of energy and transportation projects in Pakistan, has achieved great outcomes in 2021, while more and more Chinese enterprises have been entering Pakistan with the efficient expansion of projects in the Gwadar Port and local industrial parks built by the Chinese companies.

The cooperation between the two countries has great potential, shown by the increasing number of Chinese companies entering the market, Zhou Rong, a senior researcher at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China, told the Global Times on Wednesday, adding that more local factories have been structurally transformed and now contribute to exports from Pakistan.

The latest milestone in the relationship comes after China and Pakistan signed an agreement that would further open the Chinese market for Pakistani onion imports in late November, the first deal since the two neighbours embarked on the second development phase of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which focuses on cooperation across industrial and agricultural sectors.

Rong said that the agreement showed that China has been working on reducing the trade deficit between the two countries and getting more high-quality products from Pakistan.

It also showed that Pakistan has been continuously improving the quality of its agricultural products to better meet the increasing demand from the Chinese market, he added.

Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Nong Rong had earlier said that between January and September 2021, agricultural trade amounted to $860 million, with Pakistan’s exports to China reaching $630 million, a twofold increase on a year-on-year basis, while the exports of mangoes alone reached 37.4 tonnes, a jump of more than 10 times, compared with the same period of the last year.

Rong emphasised that China is still a potential market for more Pakistani products such as soccer and bath towels, which will be favoured by the Chinese consumers, but further efforts for marketing are needed.

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