Beijing: China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) will restore Pakistan’s journey to progress and prosperity as the country has suffered a great deal in the past because of terrorism. This was said by Secretary General of the Academic Committee National Development and Reform Commission Mr Zhang Yansheng while delivering the opening lecture of “2017 Media Programme for Belt & Road (B&R) Countries” here in Chinese Capital city on Sunday.
The lecture was preceded by an impressive inaugural ceremony participated by journalists of the OBOR countries including Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Singapore, Myanmar and Philippines. The two-week workshop and Media Cooperation Forum on Belt & Road are jointly organized by People’s Daily of China, Tsinghua University and People’s Bank of China (PBC) School of Finance.
The event is sponsored by Tencent, China’s leading Internet and value-added services provider. One could see a galaxy of senior journalists from all media groups—print, electronic, online and social—enthusiastically taking part in the event as according to them, they felt an ownership of the B&R initiative and shared Chinese leadership’s vision of bringing prosperity to their region.
Despite diversity of cultures, different languages and countries, the media persons were on one page regarding China’s key role in uplifting their respective countries’ economies and making their economic turnaround a near possibility.
Mr Zhang Yansheng’s opening lecture was on “Interpreting the Belt & Road Initiative.” However, while responding to a question he particularly mentioned Pakistan as a close friend and trusted ally of China. Besides terrorism, the country is facing major energy and power crisis and OBOR’s flagship project CPEC aims at not only giving country’s economy a major boost but it will also resolve its power and energy woes.
“B&R is not China’s project alone but it is the project of all those nations and people who live along it,” said Yansheng. Mr Zhang Yansheng shared vision of President Xi Jinping on OBOR quoting him as “We should build the Silk Road into a road of peace, prosperity and openness.” According to Mr Zhang Yansheng President Xi Jinping wanted the road to be open and bring prosperity to the nations of South Asia and South East Asia. Again referring to the Chinese leadership’s vision he said President Xi is clear in mind when he says “We can harmonize with each other even if we think differently.”
Mr Zhang Yansheng dismissed the impression and the negative propaganda that China was harboring certain designs against certain nations. America may think to Americanize the world but China doesn’t do so. It respects the sovereignty and independence of the nations and never harbors any imperialistic designs.
The three-hour lecture highlighted various aspects of the Belt & Road Initiative and he discussed in detail subjects such as “The New Trend of De-globalization,” “Constructing a Community of Common Destiny,” “Growth of the International Trade of Goods”, “Xi’s Achievements over the Last Four Years,” “Framework of the BRI”, “Priorities for the BRI”, “Challenges for West-West Cooperation” and “Risk Prevention in Foreign Investment.” He ended his presentation with emphasizing on the member countries to “Firmly seize Development Opportunities of Tomorrow.”
Later, Dr Sun Guofeng, DG Research Institute of People’s Bank of China gave an overview of China’s Financial Reforms and the headway the country has made in banking sector. About Chinese currency RMB’s (Yuan) internationalization, he said it was in 2008 when financial crises changed global system profoundly providing market demand for cross-border use of RMB. In 2009, as pilot project four cities namely, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Guangdong and ASEAN were selected for RMB’s cross border settlements. Seeing the success of the experiment, RMB trade and settlement was fully expanded and extended to all current accounts, said Dr Sun Guofeng. Dr Guofeng also discussed and explained various economic, trade and banking policies of China saying we should continue to diversify country’s currency system. Both the sessions on the inaugural day workshop turned out to be quite interactive and informative for the journalists community of the regional countries and they inquired about China’s leadership role with particular regard to their country in the areas of investment, infrastructure development, resolution of economic woes etc.
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