Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar has said that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, one of the signature projects under the Belt and Road Initiative, is a practical manifestation of win-win cooperation and shared prosperity and a commendable endeavor in building a China-Pakistan community with a shared future.
“All these elements also form the bedrock of President Xi Jinping’s visionary Belt and Road Initiative,” he said in an exclusive interview with China Daily published here on Tuesday.
The prime minister lauded the Belt and Road Initiative for having “advanced inclusive development to reduce poverty and inequality, improved people’s ability to pay taxes and enhanced governments’ ability to retire their debts”. The Pakistani leader, who took office in August as the eighth caretaker prime minister of Pakistan, is visiting China for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, which will be held in Beijing on Tuesday and Wednesday. Kakar dismissed theories that the BRI has led participating countries into “debt traps”, saying that China is offering “a unique mechanism of development financing to developing countries — which is without conditions and different from the traditional development financing models”.
“It is wrong to describe BRI financing as a ‘debt trap’; it is rather an essential tool for helping countries in achieving comprehensive and inclusive development of their peoples,” he added.
