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Islamabad: China's President Hu Jintao began a four-day visit to traditional ally Pakistan on Friday during which the two sides would sign some "landmark" cooperation agreements.
President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz greeted the Chinese leader on arrival at the Chaklala air base, where the ceremonies included a 21-gun salute and a guard of honour.
Musharraf and Hu will oversee the signing of the agreements today after delegation-level talks and one-to-one meeting between the two leaders.
"The two sides have completed necessary spadework to ink some landmark documents," Pakistani ambassador to China Salman Bashir told the state media.
A Free Trade Agreement would be the highly important document to be signed, he said, adding that FTA would bring tariff down to zero on hundreds of items traded between the two countries, he said.
He said the visit, the first by a Chinese president in a decade, would give a "new impetus" to close bilateral ties, generating more business activities at public and private levels.
"We are going to take some concrete measures to enhance volume of bilateral trade and economic collaboration in the fields of industry, agriculture, energy," the diplomat said.
He said Pakistan expects the volume of trade with China, currently estimated at over $4 billion, to rise to $15 billion in the next five years.
The two countries will also sign a five-year plan to put in place a comprehensive structural framework for boosting economic ties. An agreement for setting up a joint investment company will also be inked.
Pakistan and China have also agreed to initiate studies to build an energy corridor for China providing access to oil and gas resources of Central and Western Asia.
The plan includes development of oil refining and storage in Pakistan's coastal areas. Huge red banners showing Hu and Musharraf were strung up around Islamabad and authorities enforced strict security for the visit, deploying hundreds of additional security forces including armed police commandos.
"China has been a consistent and a reliable friend of Pakistan for the last 55 years and we have very deep and strong cooperation in all areas," foreign ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said.
Recent reports that Pakistan and China may sign a nuclear deal similar to one made by India and the United States earlier this year were "speculative", Aslam said.
"However we have a long-standing cooperation in the civil nuclear field with China and a broad ranging agreement was signed in February 2006 when President Musharraf visited China," she said.
Hu, who was to attend yesterday a banquet by President Musharraf in his honour, will leave for the eastern city of Lahore tomorrow for a two-day stay there.
China has built a 300 megawatt atomic power plant in Pakistan in the Punjab province and a second of the same capacity is under construction in the province with Chinese assistance.
Beijing remains the largest arms supplier to Islamabad and the two countries are jointly developing JF-17 Thunder fighter aircraft.
It has also invested millions of dollars in building a modern port at Gwadar in Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province on the Arabian Sea.
Hu flew here at the end of a visit to India, where he underlined that China was not pursuing any selfish objectives in South Asia.
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