Islamabad: Pakistan and China have signed 24 MoUs aimed at strengthening digital collaboration between the two countries, state media reported Monday.
The MoUs were signed in Beijing under the Joint Working Group on IT Cooperation and included one government-to-government, seven government-to-business, and 16 business-to-business agreements, state-run Radio Pakistan reported.
The initiative focuses on developing an innovative and pragmatic digital corridor to enhance cooperation in the IT industry.
The digital corridor will create new avenues for Pakistani technology companies and expand cooperation in ICT infrastructure development.
The Ministry of IT and Telecom has been pursuing multiple international collaborations to train up to 300,000 Pakistani youths in advanced digital skills, promote AI adoption and expand IT exports and digital capacity, according to the report.
The countries are in the process of implementing the second phase of the multi-billion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) agreement, which was launched in 2014.
Cooperation in IT is a key component of the CPEC, which connects China’s Xinjiang with Pakistan’s Gwadar port in Balochistan. The CPEC is regarded as the flagship project of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the pet scheme of Chinese President Xi Jinping.