ECONOMIC CORRIDO

Visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif attend a launching ceremony for cooperative deals between the two sides after their talks in Islamabad, capital of Pakistan, April 20, 2015.[Photo/Xinhua]

High on the agenda of Xi's two-day state visit include advancing the construction of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a planned network of roads, railways and energy projects linking southwest Pakistan's deepwater Gwadar Port with northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

The CPEC is located in where the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road meet.

"We need to form a '1+4' cooperation structure with the CPEC at the center and the Gwadar Port, transport infrastructure, energy and industrial cooperation being the four key areas to achieve a win-win result and common development," Xi said during the talks.

The two countries should make steady progress in developing the Gwadar Port and building the CPEC, thus bringing benefits to the people and setting an example for other major projects of interconnectivity in this region, he said.

"It has a significant meaning for a China-Pakistan energy cooperation project (of the Karot Hydropower Station in Pakistan) to be chosen as the first investment project of the Silk Road Fund since its establishment (in December)," Xi said.

The Chinese president called for well planning the industrial parks construction along the CPEC, and finalizing the free trade area talks between the two countries at an early date.

After the talks, the two leaders jointly met reporters, reaffirming the traditional friendship of the two countries and vowing to carry forward the relationship generations after generations.