CONSUL General of China in Lahore Zhao Shiren said on Sunday the recently concluded 3rd Belt and Road Forum was a huge success as commercial agreements worth $97.2 were signed at the BRF CEO Conference which will help generate jobs and accelerate growth in BRI countries. Speaking at a seminar organized by the Institute of International Relations and Media Research on the “3rd BRF: Benefits to Pakistan and Global Shared Community,” he said the forum also decided to establish a BRF Secretariat to facilitate institution-building and project implementation.
There is no doubt that the BRI received a fresh impetus as a result of deliberations of the participating delegates from around the globe because concrete decisions have been taken to take fruits of development and growth to different corners of the world. A swift mechanism devised by China to ensure project identification, processing and implementation would help create enormous job opportunities in different countries besides resolution of their problems and difficulties in the realm of economy. During the BRF, 458 outcomes were reached, including the Beijing Initiative for Deepening Cooperation on Connectivity, Belt and Road Green Development, International Digital Economy Cooperation, Green Investment and Finance Partnership, and High-Level Principles on Corruption-free Belt and Road Building. They also included specific targets such as providing 100,000 training opportunities on green development for partner countries by 2030 and increasing the number of joint laboratories to 100. Pakistan and China also signed 20 agreements and MoUs, covering cooperation on the BRI, infrastructure, mining, industry, green and low-carbon development, health, space cooperation, digital, development cooperation and agricultural export to China. The decision to fast-track development of Gwadar Port and ML-I upgradation would go a long way in accelerating the pace of socio-economic development in Pakistan. In this backdrop, there is a need for the two countries to intensify their mutual interaction at various levels to sort out relevant details and remove hindrances in the way of time-bound implementation of agreed projects and targets.
