ISLAMABAD: Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng was accorded a welcome on Monday as he arrived at the Prime Minister’s House in Islamabad to meet with PM Shehbaz Sharif.
On his arrival, the premier received the foreign dignitary at the main entrance of the PM House.
Later, he introduced his delegation to the Chinese vice-premier comprising federal cabinet members Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah, Commerce Minister Syed Naveed Qamar, Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal, Railway Minister Saad Rafiq, Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar and Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM) Tariq Fatemi.
This followed the introduction of the Chinese delegation to the premier by the visiting dignitary.
At the invitation of the government of Pakistan, the special envoy of President Xi Jinping, the vice premier of China and member of the Politburo of the central committee of the Communist Party, is visiting Pakistan to attend the 10th-anniversary celebrations of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
PM Shehbaz took to Twitter and said it was a pleasure to “warmly welcome the Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng and the member of his delegation to Pakistan”.
“They are visiting Pakistan to join us in celebrating the 10th anniversary of CPEC and witnessing first-hand the transformations brought about by this game-changing initiative,” he wrote.
China’s Vice Premier and one of President Xi’s close aides, He Lifeng, arrived in Islamabad a day earlier on a three-day visit to mark not only 10 years of CPEC but to discuss the next phase of the flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) project.
He Lifeng, 68, was named in March as a key government official overseeing China’s economy.
In his new role as the vice premier, He oversees everything from industrial policy to trade negotiations. He spent the past five years as the leading central planner of China’s economy.
The Chinese vice-premier has played a prominent role in China’s international economic relations and implementation of the BRI, of which CPEC is a flagship project.
