ZARDARI HAILS CHINESE SCHOLARSHIP FOR PAKISTANI STUDENTS

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President Asif Ali Zardari on Thursday welcomed China Foundation for Peace and Development (CFPD)’s commitment to double its scholarships for Pakistani students of underprivileged families who are seeking technical and vocational training through Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP). During his meeting with Chinese delegation of CFPD, headed by Secretary General Xu Zhensui, President Asif Ali Zardari remarked that enhanced people to people contacts and mutual cooperation of the two countries especially in the social sectors would further strengthen traditional people-to-people brotherly relations and would augment government’s efforts in reducing poverty, women empowerment and uplift of marginalized sections of society. Xu Zhensui, Secretary General China Foundation for Peace and Development was accompanied by Tian Geng, Zhang Jing and Liu Chang. Chairperson BISP Farzana Raja, Secretary General to the President M. Salman Faruqui, Spokesperson to the President Senator Farhatullah Babar and other senior officials were also present during the meeting. The President said Benazir Income Support Programme, being the flagship programme of the present Government is based on the vision of martyred leader, Shaheed Benazir Bhutto. BISP, the government’s flagship programme for poverty alleviation and women empowerment is aimed at socio-economic uplifting of the marginalised people, he added. The President said BISP has earned international recognition due to its effectiveness, efficiency and transparency. He said that CFPD’s support to BISP would complement its ability to reach out to the underprivileged and poor of the society. Xu Zhensui thanked the President for meeting and assured his organization’s continued assistance to the people of Pakistan and to BISP in various social sector endeavours. He expressed satisfaction over the performance of BISP for providing technical and vocational training to youth successfully in the first phase under Pak-China Friendship Scholarship Programme. This is the first ever social sector cooperation through BISP between Pakistan and China. The President said Pakistan highly values its friendship and strategic partnership with China and the people of two countries enjoy unique bonds of fraternity, trust and mutual respect. He said that it was heartening to note the progress being made in further strengthening the existing relations and mutual cooperation of the two countries. President Zardari said that Pakistan greatly values Chinese assistance and support towards its socio-economic development and was eager to fully translate the existing political relations into economic terms. Our ultimate goal, the President said is closer economic integration. He said that Pakistan has offered huge incentives to the Chinese business community and investors to get maximum benefits of the available opportunities in Pakistan. He said that recent legislation on Special Economic Zones will help the business community in reducing the cost of doing business and will enhance their rate of return. He said that under the new law all capital goods, machinery and equipment will get one time exemption from the customs duties and the entrepreneurs will be exempted from Income Tax for ten years. The President said, “We greatly admire Chinese tremendous socio-economic progress and wanted to learn from the Chinese experience of growth and development.”