BEIJING, April 14: President Pervez Musharraf is pushing for the construction of gas and oil pipelines between Pakistan and China to bolster bilateral ties.

“Pakistan is very much in favour of a pipeline between the Gulf and China through Pakistan and I have been speaking about this with your leadership,” the president told a gathering of students and academics at Tsinghua University on Monday.

The two countries have explored proposals to use Pakistan as a pipeline corridor, bringing oil and gas from the Middle East to China.

The president said he had raised the proposal, which had been mooted for several years, during talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao.

He said a proposed gas pipeline between Iran and India through Pakistan could be expanded to include China.

“I believe in a corridor linking Pakistan and China, more road linkage, a rail link, fibre optics and oil and gas,” he said. “We are vying for a pipeline from Iran through Pakistan to India. We are calling it the I-P-I pipeline. So why can’t this be the I-P-C pipeline from Iran through Pakistan to China?” he asked.

Pakistan’s proposals to become a main energy link for China have not moved much beyond vague talks but the president said they were “very much possible,” even with the high-altitude border between the two nations.

China relies on imported oil for nearly half its needs and is keen to diversify supply routes away from the traffic-choked and easily blockaded Malacca Straits.

But Chinese industry sources have said in the past that security concerns in Pakistan made it very unlikely that the pipeline plans would take off.

President Musharraf said he would welcome the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) working alongside the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan.

“In a joint cooperative effort, if the SCO can do something, yes indeed it should come forward and cooperate towards the security of Afghanistan.”

But “if the SCO can come along, then we would need to ensure that there is no confrontation with Nato,” he said.

The SCO, which includes Russia, China and former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, will need to be committed to Afghanistan’s stability for such a joint effort to work.

INVESTMENT: Addressing the Pakistan-China Business Forum, the president called upon Chinese investors to contribute to the industrialisation of Pakistan to generate employment opportunities that, he said, would help curb extremism and terrorism.

He said more than 600 companies in Pakistan were earning very high profit. He said many companies were earning profit of 20 per cent and above.

He said Pakistan offered cheap labour and was working on improving the quality of manpower by establishing engineering universities with the assistance of other countries. “We are equally paying attention towards vocational and skill training for the labour force.”

The president said Pakistan offered numerous incentives to Chinese investors. He lauded the Chinese firms which were doing business in Pakistan, including China Mobile. He mentioned the large projects Pakistan had awarded to China, including expansion of the Karakoram Highway and the Neelum-Jehlum hydropower project.

—Agencies