ISLAMABAD (Internews): In promoting high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, China adheres to the principle of balancing major landmark projects with “small and beautiful” livelihood projects, said Chinese ambassador to Pakistan Jiang Zaidong.
While addressing at the China-Pakistan Mineral Cooperation Forum and referring to the construction of CPEC, he stated that China has not only built the Gwadar International Airport but has also helped the people of Gwadar build schools, hospitals and water plants.
He further highlighted that in the mining sector, China encourages Chinese enterprises to ensure that the benefits of cooperation reach local residents. Citing the Saindak Project as an example, the ambassador noted that the project has maintained stable cooperation with hundreds of local suppliers.
He added that it has also trained over 5,200 Pakistani talents with both technical and managerial skills.
The ambassador emphasized that such cooperation reflects China’s commitment to livelihood development alongside major infrastructure projects, ensuring that cooperation benefits people at the local level while supporting long-term development goals.
Pakistan is rich in mineral resources, with annual ore extraction exceeding 100 million tons, 80% of which comes from small and medium-sized mining projects. These projects generally face constraints in funding, technology and talent, resulting in low development efficiency, short value chains and slow release of development potential, said ambassador.
Over the years, Chinese enterprises have continued to increase technological and financial investment, hoping to help Pakistan unlock its mining potential and promote economic transformation and sustainable development. Going forward, through full-value chain cooperation, the precision of upstream mineral exploration, the intensity of midstream mining and processing and the speed of downstream trade and logistics can be enhanced, helping Pakistan convert its resource advantages into development fruits, added ambassador.
Such cooperation can also promote the upgrading of the mining industry from raw material exports to local processing and high-end manufacturing, increasing the added value of minerals and the competitiveness of the mining sector.
Enterprises need returns on their investments, and such cooperation models are not only beneficial to Pakistan’s development but also improve the return on investment for enterprises, achieving true mutual benefit and win-win results, told ambassador.
Achieving overall upgrading from a comprehensive perspective remains a key objective, with efforts aimed at elevating bilateral cooperation from the current foundation of mineral exploration and mining to a higher level.
This approach covers horizontally all links of the mineral value chain, including exploration, machinery and equipment, smelting and processing, while vertically integrating trade and investment, logistics and finance as well as research and development and training.
At the same time, the focus is on pursuing development-oriented outcomes. The cooperation seeks to not only promote mineral exploitation and utilization but also help Pakistan cultivate its own upstream and downstream industrial chains.
It aims to train a group of mining talents, create a number of demonstration projects, and explore a growth model in which mining and local economic and social development advance in tandem, addressed ambassador.
