LAHORE: British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson Friday said the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor would make Pakistan a hub of trade and commerce.
Addressing students and faculty members of the Government College University, Lahore on Friday, the foreign secretary said it was his ambition to make UK-Pakistan relations stronger. “The British High Commission in Islamabad is one of our biggest diplomatic missions in the world while the UK aid programme in Pakistan is the biggest in the world, totalling 375 million pounds this year.”
He said no fewer than 1.2 million Britons had Pakistani heritage, and among them were members of parliament, sportsmen, pop stars, journalists, scientists, scholars and business people.
The foreign secretary went on to say: “Monuments in so many Pakistani cities serve as permanent reminders of the British contribution, and the people can see it in the architecture and cricket that unites our country and the whole of South Asia.”
Referring to geopolitical importance of Pakistan, he said, Pakistan embraces the geographical heart of Asia where India, with over a billion people, lies only 15 miles away; to the West are Afghanistan and Iran, with a combined population of more than 100 million and north-west are the energy rich states of Central Asia.”
Pakistan, he said, was the natural junction between all of these huge markets. He stressed the need to develop more silk roads by constructing modern links from East to West and West to East to overcome poverty. “I am very excited by the CPEC and I hope that British companies get to participate that will revive the ancient silk road as rebirth of trading caravans connecting East and West,” he observed.
He said that Karachi was 6th largest city in the world and it should be one of Asia’s biggest trading entrepots, alongside Singapore or Shanghai. “The only way to achieve that goal is closer economic integration and I believe that Britain can play a vital role in helping you to realise this vision,” he added.
He acknowledged the sacrifices rendered by Pakistan in the war on terror. He said Britain wanted to widen the horizons of its ties across the world including Pakistan.
