Pak-China Business Forum: Friendship aside, offer value to arouse interest

Academics call for developing linkages with Chinese counterparts.

ISLAMABAD:

Solving industrial problems at the local level and promoting research at Pakistani universities can help the country build effective collaboration with China in technological development.

This was stated by Shoaib Ahmed Khan, an engineering professor at the National University of Sciences & Technology, while delivering a lecture series on Information and Communications Technology (ICT) at the ongoing Pak-China Business Forum on Monday.

The event is being held at the Pak-China Friendship Centre.

“We (Pakistanis) have to put a value on the table, or else, we might have friendship between Pakistan and China, but Chinese investors would not be willing to spend money here,” he said.

Khan was of the view that Research and Development (R&D) units at Pakistani universities could develop linkages with Chinese companies working in Pakistan.

The event, which ends on March 26, is organised by the COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (CIIT) and the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry.



Companies, businesses and universities set up over 120 stalls at the forum to display their technologies, products and research, with over 30 stalls belonging to companies from China.

Meanwhile, speakers at the lecture series urged students and researchers to focus on quality research instead of blindly attempting to publish journal papers. They said that academia needs to reach out to the industry through research project proposals that provide solutions to industrial problems.

Colin Hu, Managing Director of the Enterprise Business Group at Huawei, said that Huawei was interested in locally designed and manufactured solutions and in the next phase of operations, the firm would also want Pakistani entrepreneurs to help with content development.

Alongside the business expo and lecture series, a symposium on Pakistan-China relations was also conducted.

Mustafa Hyder Sayed, Executive Director of the Pakistan-China Institute, an Islamabad-based think tank, spoke at the symposium about China’s rise as a world power through promotion of economics and culture instead of neorealist strategies.

An international workshop on nanotechnology, policy, ethics in science and technology also kicked off on the sidelines of the business forum.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 26^th, 2013.