Pakistan Ambassador to China, Moin ul Haq on Sunday said that Hunan province of China would play a greater role in building the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project of Belt and Road Initiative. “Pakistan and China are “iron brothers” and Chairman Mao Zedong has made a great contribution to the friendship between the two countries, and I am pleased to be in Chairman Mao’s hometown of Hunan on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China,” he said in an exclusive interview with Hunan Daily. The ambassador hoped to use his visit as an opportunity to promote all-round exchanges and cooperation between Pakistan and Hunan, and achieve more substantive results in economic and trade investment, cultural education, personnel exchanges and the conclusion of friendly city relations. “Hunan is like a museum of revolutionary history without walls, some of which have stories about Pakistan,” Moin ul Haq, who came to Hunan for the first time, said. “The second Chinese ambassador to Pakistan, Geng Yan, is from Hunan, and I have met his daughter and i am looking forward to visiting his former home in Shaoling.” Yuan Longping, the ‘father of hybrid rice’ rooted in Hunan, helped develop rice cultivation in Pakistan, and many Pakistanis expressed their condolences and remembrance when they learned of his death. The history of Hunan has made Ambassador Moin ul Haq feel at home, while the innovative and open new Hunan has made him ‘amazing’. Moin ul Haq said that he attended the International Symposium on Traditional Chinese Medicine – Unani Traditional Medicine and the opening ceremony of the China-Pakistan Center for Traditional Chinese Medicine, and inspected representative enterprises in the fields of medicine and health, engineering machinery, cultural media,. “Hunan has made admirable achievements in pandemic prevention and control, precision poverty alleviation, and has made remarkable achievements in industrial development and other fields, creating many valuable experiences worthy of our learning.” “In the future, we hope that Hunan will play a greater role and make greater contributions in the construction of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor,” he said. Ambassador Haque said that the construction of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is now entering the second phase, focusing mainly on agriculture, industry and people’s livelihood cooperation. Hunan’s agricultural science and technology is more developed, engineering machinery, rail transit and other industries have great influence in infrastructure construction and other fields of strength. He hoped to strengthen project cooperation with Hunan, jointly promote the construction of the CPEC in the two countries’ all-weather strategic partnership to create more models. In Ambassador Haq’s view, cultural education is also one of the key areas of future cooperation between the two sides. He said that there are many Pakistani students in Hunan, and these young people are the messengers of deepening friendship between Pakistan and China in the future, as well as a solid force to promote Pakistan-China scientific and technological cooperation. He also invited a large number of Hunan enterprises to Pakistan to invest in business and said, “We also welcome the people of Hunan to visit Pakistan.”