Sharif courts investments from China

Beijing/Shenzhen: On a mission to seek investments from China to revive Pakistan’s cash-strapped economy, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday assured full security to the Chinese personnel from the recurring terrorist attacks targeting them.

Sharif reached the high-tech southern city of Shenzhen on Tuesday on the first leg of his five-day official visit to China.

The 72-year-old leader embarked on his first visit to China after he took over as prime minister for the second term after his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party-led coalition government assumed power in March. Addressing the Pakistan-China Business Forum, Sharif assured all-out facilitation to Chinese investors and security of Chinese individuals, projects, and investments in Pakistan, state-run Associated Press Pakistan reported.

He said his government had taken various measures to ensure fool-proof security to protect the lives of Chinese workers in Pakistan.

“I will spare no effort to protect the lives of Chinese workers and assure and guarantee that we will provide them security more than our children.

This will never happen again,” he said.

Referring to the March terrorist attack in Besham in Pakistan, in which five Chinese personnel and their Pakistani driver were killed, he said it was “one of the saddest” days of his life when the whole nation felt saddened. The latest was the March suicide attack in Dasu in which five Chinese nationals and a Pakistan driver were killed. Pakistan paid $2.58 million as compensation to the families of those killed in the attack. He told the forum that Pakistan had mineral deposits of around $10 trillion while the country’s exports stood at only $30 billion.

The mineral deposits offer huge potential to dig out and convert them into finished and semi-finished goods for exports, he said, inviting them to invest in mining. Sharif drew comparisons of economic development between Shenzhen city of 13 million people which has a GDP of $500 billion.