ISLAMABAD: Sun Weidong, Ambassador of People’s Republic of China to Pakistan said the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as part of the Belt and Road Initiative provides an important network and platform to achieve win-win cooperation in Asia and beyond. He expressed these views while speaking during a seminar held under the aegis of Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI), on Tuesday. He further said it is the best reflection of the Silk Road Spirit, featuring peace, cooperation, openness, inclusiveness, mutual learning and prosperity. He said that CPEC is crucial pilot project of the Belt and Road initiative since it has become a leading demonstration in the promotion of Belt and Road initiative as it now enters full implementation stage, making smooth and satisfactory progress. The Ambassador shared that CPEC has cross-border consensus from people of both sides because it follows principles of mutual partnership and peaceful development. He explained that CPEC follows ‘a new type of international relations based on win-win cooperation by forging partnerships of dialogue with no confrontation, on the basis of friendship rather than alliances. China wants to actively promote policy synergies rather than Cold War doctrinal divisions, he stressed. Providing data on China’s future contributions to the world in the next five years, he said that his country is expected to import goods worth USD eight trillion, attract foreign investment worth $600 billion, and at the same time will be investing $750 billion in other countries. China and South Asia with their collective population of three billion people will be the largest emerging market in the world and with the blueprint of CPEC finally becoming a reality with unprecedented development in four years, the early Harvest projects are now reaching fruition and growing like bamboo shoots across the land of Pakistan, he concluded. Welcoming delegates to the conference, President of IPRI, Ambassador (r) Abdul Basit said that peace is sine qua non for sustainable development, and Pakistan has always strived to continues for normal relations with all its neighbours. Our First Neighbour Policy is driven by the national desire to move from conflict management to conflict resolution. History tells us that we cannot build a sustainable and balanced regional cooperative framework on unpredictable and tenuous bilateral relations. He hoped that the deliberations would lead to improve understanding of the changing security situation in South Asia and help create synergies for a peaceful region. In his opening remarks, Omer Ali from the Hanns Seidel Foundation (HSF), co-organiser of the conference, pointed out that CPEC has put Pakistan in a much stronger negotiating position globally, and it is likely to increase direly needed cooperation with other neighbouring countries since the Corridor will raise many secluded layers of society from abject poverty.