Imran all praise for China’s efforts against corruption

Tariq Butt / IANS

Prime Minister Imran Khan, currently on visit to China, has said that he wished he could follow the example of President Xi Jinping and send 500 corrupt individuals in Pakistan to jail.

While speaking at the China Council for Promotion of International Trade, shown live on Pakistani TV channels, the premier said that one thing he had learned from China was how the country’s leadership tackled corruption.

“One of President Xi Jinping’s biggest crusade has been against corruption,” Imran said, adding that he had heard that some 400 “ministerial-level people” had been convicted on charges of corruption and put behind jail in the last five years in China.

“I wish I could follow President Xi’s example and put 500 corrupt people in Pakistan in jail,” he said adding that processing cases in Pakistan was very cumbersome.

The premier counted corruption as one of the biggest impediments to investment in a country. He said that the most important thing that Pakistan could learn from China was the way it lifted people out of poverty.

“What inspires me most about China is the way they have lifted 700 million people out of poverty in 30 years. This has never happened in human history.”

The premier said that since his government had come to power, it had taken a conscious decision to make it easier for investors to come to Pakistan.

“We will want them to make profits in Pakistan. The Prime Minister’s Office is driving opportunities for people to invest in our country. The ease of doing business is driven from the Prime Minister’s Office. We have just formed a China-Pakistan Economic Corridor [CPEC] Authority because we were having problems in CPEC projects because they were under a lot of different ministries. We have now decided that there will be one authority which will resolve all the problems of CPEC, and that authority will be the Prime Minister’s Office, so that my office can make it easier for people investing in Pakistan.”

Imran recounted various steps that Pakistan had taken including the completion of phase one of the Gwadar Free Zone. He said that there were various reasons for people to invest in Pakistan including its strategic location, its young population and the economic revival taking place in the country — particularly the strides made in the ease of doing business as well as the industrial clusters through special economic zones (SEZs).

The prime minister named the sectors Pakistan wanted Chinese investment in: textile, manufacturing, IT and financial services, physical and technological logistics, tourism and hospitality, food processing and agriculture, housing as well as in oil and gas.

He emphasised that now was the time to invest in Pakistan.

Imran said the Prime Minister’s Office will be dealing with the major investors in our country and CPEC will be dealt again from it.

Chief of Army Staff Qamar Javed Bajwa and the Chinese military leadership discussed the Kashmir issue, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said.

Bajwa arrived in Beijing earlier on Tuesday, just hours before Imran reached the Chinese capital on his official two-day visit.

According to the ISPR, the Pakistani military’s media wing, Gen Bajwa called on Commander Army General Han Weiguo of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and General Xu Qiliang, Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), at the PLA headquarters.

The two sides discussed regional security environment and Pakistan China defence cooperation, the ISPR said.

“The COAS apprised Chinese military leadership about the ongoing situation in Kashmir if it’s not amicably resolved, for which India needs to respect UN resolutions and ensure the human rights of Kashmiris,” reads the ISPR statement.

Meanwhile, it was reported that Imran has become the sixth most popular world leader on Twitter, boasting 10.5 million followers on the micro-blogging platform, four spots behind his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi

The development comes following his Sept.27 speech at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) where he raised the Kashmir issue, Geo News reported on Tuesday.