The Chinese foreign ministry on Tuesday welcomed the launching of the Pakistan Pavilion on JD.com, one of the most popular and influential e-Commerce platforms in the Chinese online market. Foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said that China was ready to work with Pakistan to strengthen cooperation in cross border e-commerce and digital trade. “I have noticed the relevant information and welcomed this. We are ready to work with Pakistan to continue strengthening our cooperation in cross-border e-commerce and digital trade cooperation,” Zhao Lijian said during his regular briefing in response to a question asked by APP. On December 24, Pakistan’s first online national pavilion on JD.com was launched aimed at providing a useful platform to Pakistani and Chinese traders to promote Pakistani high-quality products through China’s huge online market. Pakistan Ambassador to China, Moin ul Haque inaugurated the pavilion on the e-commerce platform at a simple ceremony held at the Embassy of Pakistan. Zhao Lijian remarked that China and Pakistan were all-weather strategic cooperative partners and ironclad friends and brothers. Since 2011, China has become the largest trading partner of Pakistan. The exports from Pakistan to China are also on fast growth, he added. The spokesperson said that the Chinese side was ready to work with Pakistan to continue strengthening our cooperation in cross-border e-commerce and digital trade. “We support more quality and specialties from Pakistan to the Chinese market and take concrete actions to promote high-quality development of bilateral trade cooperation to develop more benefits to our two people,” he added. Talking to APP, Ambassador Haque said that in view of growing trade and business ties between Pakistan and China, the national pavilion would provide a useful platform to Pakistani and Chinese traders to promote Pakistani products through China’s huge online market. He said that while the pavilion would serve as a starting point in further exploring excellent opportunities offered by the Chinese digital economy, it would also complement the efforts of Pakistan’s offline pavilions which have already been in active operation in various cities of China including Chengdu, Kunming, Urumqi Yiwu, and Zhengzhou. “Moreover, this pavilion would also provide a window for promoting Pakistan’s culture, cuisine, tourism, and people-to-people exchanges,” he added. While terming the launching of the pavilion on China’s largest e-commerce platform a historic occasion, he said that this online pavilion would give a very important platform for Pakistani traders as well as Chinese importers to promote Pakistani products to the one of the largest markets in the world. Ambassador Haque also mentioned that this platform would promote Pakistani products to the Chinese markets. “Our traders and exporters can open their shops and introduce their products through this platform and Chinese importers can also sell their Pakistan products,” he added. Ambassador Haque observed that China was already the world’s largest e-commerce market and for Pakistani traders, it was a very important time to benefit from this opportunity. “We are not only training our traders, raising awareness about this green e-commerce business in China but also doing their capacity building,” he added. He said that Pakistani food products, garments, leather products, sports goods, and even furniture could be promoted through this online platform. He informed that a bilingual app in both English and Chinese was being developed to bridge the language barrier and the Pakistan traders could use this app to connect to this platform. It is worth mentioning that as a comprehensive 2C online retailer in China, having 700 million active customers, JD.com is one of the most popular and influential e-Commerce platforms in China.