Xi's special representative to attend Decade of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor celebration event

BEIJING, July 29 (Xinhua) -- He Lifeng, special representative of President Xi Jinping, will travel to Pakistan from July 30 to August 1 to attend the Decade of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor celebration event in Islamabad, foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning announced on Saturday.

He, vice premier of the State Council, will travel to Pakistan at the invitation of the government of Pakistan, Mao added.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) proposed by President Xi Jinping, and also the 10th anniversary of the launch of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Over the past decade, as an important pioneering project of the BRI, the CPEC has achieved fruitful results and become a new benchmark for the friendship between China and Pakistan, a foreign ministry spokesperson said.

To mark the 10th anniversary of the launch of the CPEC, the Pakistani government will hold a grand celebration event in the country's capital Islamabad. He will attend the event and meet with the leaders of Pakistan, the spokesperson said.

China and Pakistan are all-weather strategic cooperative partners and iron-clad friends, and the friendship between the two countries is time-honored, the spokesperson noted.

China hopes that this visit will be an opportunity for both sides to jointly implement the important consensus between leaders of the two countries, renew the traditional friendship, build on past achievements and upgrade the development of the CPEC, consolidate and deepen the China-Pakistan all-weather strategic cooperative partnership, advance the building of an even closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future in the new era and contribute to the development and prosperity of the region and beyond, the spokesperson added.