Chinese President Hu Jintao is currently in Pakistan for a state visit since Thursday, which is aimed to deepen the strategic and economic and trade cooperation between the two neighboring countries and to further advance the sustained, steady and healthy growth of their all-weather bilateral relations.

Pakistan is China's old friend of long standing. The half-century long strategic cooperation between China and Pakistan remains intact without being slightly affected by any change in the global stress and storm, and the fraternal sentiments have struck deep roots in the minds of the people of both countries. The Karakorun Road China built over three decades ago links the two countries living in amity by land, and it became a towering monument of friendship erecting in the hearts of their people. In the winding and undulating ranges of the Karakorun, 88 Chinese engineers and technicians laid down their precious lives.

To cope with a growing expansion of Sino-Pakistani economic relations and trade and personnel exchange over recent years, China will help Pakistan from next year to renovate and widen the Karakorun Road and rebuild the city of Balakot, which was leveled to the ground during the catastrophic 2005 earthquake. The renovation and extension project of the Karakorun Road not only complies with the needs from expanded bilateral cooperation in the new era but will make the land pivot of Sino-Pakistan friendship and cooperation still more smooth and unimpeded.

In the course of globalization and China's rapid economic growth, the status of economic relations and trade has been elevated drastically in the Sino-Pakistani strategic ties. The expansion of economic and trade ties not only facilitates beefing up the economic basis for bilateral strategic ties, but further fostering the non-governmental basis of the friendship between the two countries.

The volume of Sino-Pakistani trade has risen year by year, with their bilateral trade volume reaching 4.26 billion US dollars last year.

As an important neighbor of China, Pakistan aspires to capitalize on the opportunity brought by China's economic growth and link its domestic economic development closely with the development of western China. President Hu is expected to make decisions and reach consensus with top Pakistan authority during his visit on numerous strategic blueprints concerning Sino-Pakistan economic and trade cooperation to beef up the strategic cooperation in this regard.

Since early this year, Pakistan has proposed plans to build an energy passage, a trade corridor and a Pakistan-China rail route between the two countries to depict the splendid blueprint for Sino-Pakistan relations. In fact, the Qwadar Port and Karakorum Road which China had helped Pakistan build have made it possible to translate the plans into a reality. If such plans can be turned into reality someday, one can imagine how broad the development perspective for strategic cooperation between the two countries will be.

To deepen Sino-Pakistani ties, it is essential to set up the long-term and strong economic ties, and it is imperative to open up new areas for sustained bilateral strategic cooperation. At present, there are three major issues facing the Sino-Pakistan trade. Namely, Pakistan's deficit in Sino-Pak trade has been enlarging year after year, China's investment in Pakistan remains inadequate, far below the height of bilateral strategic ties between the two countries, and a growing impact has been inflicted by Chinese goods upon the home market of Pakistan, and there are also some competitions between textile products of the two countries internationally. These problems are, nevertheless, not difficult to tackle. Sino-Pakistani ties are bound to breach the bottle-neck restrictions to greet the vast room for development, with an impetus give by high-level leaderships of both countries, the construction of a free trade zone and the steady implementation of serial measures relevant to a Chinese industrial zone and other projects.

Through President Hu's current visit, Sino-Pakistan ties will again scale the peak with caring attention and joint efforts of high-level leaderships of both countries.

By People's Daily Online; The author is Fu Xiaoqiang, an associate researcher of the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations