KUNMING, JUNE 13 (DNA) – Pakistan and other countries from South and Southeast Asia on Tuesday pledged that they would make greater efforts to promote sister-cities relationship, pushing forward the objectives of Belt and Road’s initiative. At an international forum of governments and business community’s representatives held at Chinese city of Kunming, they underlined the need of promoting connectivity and people-to-people contacts, through sister-city relationship for their shared development and prosperity.
Kunming’s senior official told the Forum that Pakistan is their top priority for giving boost to the bilateral partnership under China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that is a pilot and major project of Belt and Road’s initiative. They are going to deepen links between Kunming and Karachi Port that will facilitate trade and business activities between the two cities.
Addressing the forum, Mayor of Kuming Wang Xiliang assured support to all those countries, particularity Pakistan that are engaged in Silk Route development. They are looking forward to work as strong partner to improve quality of life of their people.
The countries who were represented at the forum also included Malaysia, Finland, France, Thailand, Nepal, Lao Republic and Myanmar.
The forum was part of the ongoing South and Southeast Asia trade and investment expo, being held in Kunming. Pakistan had a status of Guest of Honour at the expo. The Government of Kunming provided a special pavilion to the Pakistani businessmen to showcase their commodities and to seek trade and investment’s opportunities. There are more 200 stalls set up at the expo by the Pakistani enterprises.
The Forum adopted a declaration, vowing to consolidate sister-cities relationship. It includes regular communication at government’s level, strengthening trade cooperation at level of enterprises, strengthening cooperation at the level of think-tanks and non-governmental organizations, facilitating investment and trade, establishing normalized sister-city communication mechanism and promoting policy-coordination among the sister-cities.
It was also pledged that the regional countries would also focus cross-border connectivity and implementing relevant agreements and MoUs relating to the sister-cities cooperative partnership.
It was consensus among the participants that the siser-cities relationship could prove most effective platform to business exchanges and people-to-people contacts.=DNA
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