At the 18th China-ASEAN Expo, which opened in Nanning, China on Friday, Pakistani traders and businesspeople displayed marble, wood handicrafts, carpets, leather clothing, and other national items.
Pakistan has put up a pavilion and 24 booths with an exhibition space of 81 square meters to showcase its national image and present its goods in order to promote its interchange and cooperation with China and ASEAN nations.
Moin ul Haque, Pakistan’s ambassador to China, toured several stalls and spoke with Pakistani businesses and consumers.
In an interview with APP, he stated that the China-ASEAN Expo would serve as a platform to promote the deepening of China-Pakistan collaboration and the creation of an all-weather strategic alliance of cooperation.
He said that like the previous year, Pakistan is participating in this year’s expo as a Special Partner Country this year too, adding, Pakistan attended the 17th CAEXPO with the same honorary title and set up its pavilion and booths to promote its products.
Pakistan, he said, is one of the countries along the Belt and Road and a geographical neighbor to the ASEAN countries. For many years, Pakistan has actively joined the CAEXPO, through which to enhance its exchange and cooperation with China and other countries along the Belt and Road.
He said that China-ASEAN countries have a population of over two billion people and more than US$ 18 trillion economies which provides a good platform to expand its trade with these countries.
Ambassador Haque said that Pakistan’s textile sector has a complete supply chain system and the agriculture sector makes it a more competitive country in the world. The government is also focusing on the value addition of these sectors which would help in promoting exports.
Pakistan is the fourth largest milk-producing country and now we are paying attention to produce value-added dairy products such as cheese and butter which were in high demand in China as well as ASEAN countries.
He said that Pakistan is one of the leading countries in manufacturing sports products especially footballs that are famous across the globe and other leather sports products including boxing gloves.
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Pakistan and added, by seizing the cooperative and business opportunities of the 18th CAEXPO, Pakistan is all set to introduce its products to promote business and trade, he added.
Ambassador Haque said that after the signing of Free Trade Agreement Phase -II, Pakistan traders could export over 1000 different goods to China adding, “We have seen a big improvement in our exports to China after the signing of that agreement.”
The Expo is hosted by the departments in charge of economic development and trade in China and ten ASEAN countries in collaboration with the ASEAN Secretariat.
With a theme of Sharing Opportunities Created by the New Land-Sea Corridor, Building the China-ASEAN Community with a Shared Future, this year’s expo is being held in a mixed model of Physical + On-line CAEXPO adopted for the second time.
An exhibition area of 12,000 square meters has been allocated to the exhibitors of the 10 ASEAN countries, and each ASEAN country has its own exhibition area as usual.
