China and Pakistan signed Executive Programme of Cultural Agreement to further consolidate cultural relations and to promote people-to-people contacts between the two states in Beijing on Monday.

Chinese Minister of Culture Luo Shugang and Minister of State for Information, Broadcasting, National History and Literary Heritage, Marriyum Aurangzeb, signed the agreement on behalf of their respective countries. 

Marriyum expressed the confidence that China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) would take the bilateral relations between the two countries to new heights. She said that people of both countries wanted to enhance the cultural collaboration and added that President Xi Jinping’s vision of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was a historic milestone not only for the countries along the belt and road but also the regions beyond.

She said that after signing the agreement, there was a greater responsibility on both the countries to strive for time bound implementation process.

The Minister of State said that the economic cooperation and infrastructure development and energy projects and the people to people exchanges would enhance contacts and share the heritage of both countries.

She informed that last year, CPEC Cultural Caravan was organized from Xi’an to Gwadar. Chinese group of visual artists and performing arts also participated.

The Minister of State proposed to work on setting up of Pak-China National Culture Center in Islamabad and hoped to organize mutual photography exhibition and grant cultural scholarship to students in universities. She also proposed to establish a FM Radio with an access along the CPEC route in Pakistan.  

Chinese Minister for Culture Luo Shugang welcomed the minister and her delegation and said that China and Pakistan had special relations and friendly bonds particularly after the visit of President Xi Jinping to Pakistan in 2015.

He said that China acknowledged CPEC as flagship project of BRI and it was more than a corridor of economic and trade but a corridor of cultural exchanges between the two brotherly countries.

He also thanked the Government of Pakistan for helping in establishing China Cultural Center which was inaugurated in Islamabad last year, adding that, till now 38 different types of events including exhibitions and performing arts had been introduced in less than a year.

The Chinese Culture Minister said that the two countries could work together in archaeology and heritage preservation and offered Chinese assistance for establishment of archaeology and heritage center in Pakistan.

Ambassador of Pakistan Masood Khalid and senior officials of both the countries were present on this occasion.

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