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Pakistan Prime Minister Sharif fulfills China's Xi in Beijing ahead of IMF talks

China's President Xi Jinping met Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Beijing on Friday, Chinese state media reported, days before Pakistan provides its yearly budget and obtains a new International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan.

Pakistan's area on the Arabian Sea offers it tactical significance for China, offering an overland path out towards the Gulf of Aden and onto the Suez Canal, and making it possible for Chinese ships to avoid the possible chokepoint of the Malacca Strait.

Sharif's federal government is anticipated to look for a minimum of $6. billion under a new IMF program after it presents its annual. spending plan, which

sources state

will take place on June 10. And the $27 billion or so that. Pakistan owes China, according to World Bank information, is central to. this next round of discussions with the fund.

The IMF in May

opened conversations

on the brand-new loan after Islamabad finished a short-term $3. billion program, which assisted ward off a sovereign debt. default last summer.

Pakistan owes China nearly 13% of its total financial obligation, which. was handled to spend for facilities jobs for many years. and other types of spending.

Beijing has actually lent Islamabad practically twice as much as its. second- and third-ranked multilateral loan providers, the World Bank. and the Asian Development Bank, to which Pakistan owes $16.2. billion and $13.7 billion respectively.

Chinese firms have actually likewise invested an even more $14 billion. in Pakistan given that a brand-new economic corridor linking their. nations was announced in the summer season of 2013 as part of Chinese. President Xi Jinping's flagship Belt and Roadway Initiative, data. from the American Enterprise Institute believe tank programs.

Most of that investment was made by Chinese state-owned. energy business financing fossil-fuel and nuclear power plants,. as well as logistics routes under construction linking Gwadar. Port in the Arabian Sea with the Xinjiang region in China's. northwest.

(source: Reuters)