国内英语新闻:Pakistan president optimistic on road link with China

BEIJING, July 9 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari on Friday expressed his optimism over the possible road link with China, saying the construction of the road would boost bilateral trade.

Zardari is on his five-day working visit to China, the fifth China tour since he took office as the Pakistani president in 2008. Zardari who once called himself "the first businessman president of Pakistan", said that he had his own "concept" for improving Pakistan-China trade relations.

A road connection with China is one of his ideas to make this happen.

"If you want to come to Pakistan or southeast Asia from China by sea, it will take months, but if you look at the road transportation to my port, it's only 1,100 miles from your border," said Zardari in an interview with Xinhua.

Zardari's remarks came amid some reports that China and Pakistan are considering building a rail link to reach the Arabian Sea.

"The concept has been accepted," said Zardari without elaborating.

China and Pakistan have maintained their "all-weathered" and time-tested friendship for decades.

Now there are more than 120 companies and about 10,000 Chinese nationals in Pakistan, involved in sectors such as mining, energy exploration and infrastructure building.

But Zardari said Pakistan needs more investment.

China-Pakistan trade in the first five months of this year reached 3.3 billion U.S. dollars, up 31 percent.

While addressing the China-Pakistan Economic Cooperation Forum earlier Friday, Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming said that bilateral trade could hit 15 billion U.S. dollars in 2015.

On the just-concluded China-Pakistan anti-terror drill in northwest China, Zardari said the two countries should keep united in the fight against terrorism.