China's Hu to reaffirm friendship with Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, Nov 24 (Reuters) President Hu Jintao will seek to deepen China's decades-old friendship with Pakistan today when the two neighbours are due to sign a broad range of economic agreements, including a free trade pact.

Hu arrived in Pakistan yesterday on the first visit by a Chinese president in a decade. His visit also marks the 55th anniversary of diplomatic relations which analysts describe as Pakistan's most stable.

The agreements to be signed will include the fields of industry, agriculture, energy, as well as the trade deal, a senior Pakistani government official said.

Trade between the two countries rose 39 per cent last year to 4.3 billion dollars and they hope to increase that substantially with the free trade agreement (FTA).

''We are expecting to take the volume of bilateral trade to 15 billion dollars within the next five years, with the implementation of the FTA,'' Pakistan's ambassador to China, Salman Bashir, told the Pakistani state-run APP news agency.

Hu arrived from India where he agreed with leaders to expand economic relations, sweep away mistrust and speed up efforts to resolve border disputes.

But he will be keen to show growing ties with India -- an old rival of both Pakistan and China -- do not come at Pakistan's expense, analysts say.

Analysts believe China has supported Pakistan's missile and nuclear weapons programme for decades. It is Pakistan's main supplier of conventional arms and provides hundreds of millions of dollars of development finance.

Pakistan also wants China to help it build civil nuclear plants -- something the United States refuses to do because of the role played by Pakistan's former top scientist in a nuclear proliferation scandal involving Libya, Iran and North Korea.

China has already helped Pakistan build a 300-megawatt nuclear plant and is building a second of the same capacity.

But Pakistani officials have played down talk of a substantive nuclear pact during Hu's visit, which ends on Sunday.

Hu will hold talks with President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz today and later deliver a televised address to the Pakistani nation.

Bashir said the two sides would sign a five-year economic cooperation plan to set up a comprehensive framework for boosting economic ties.

They would also agree to expand the Saindak copper and gold mining project in the southwestern Pakistani province of Baluchistan, he said.

The warmth of Pakistan's ties with China contrasts sharply with the on-off relationship Pakistan has had with the United States.

Pakistan has been a major US ally in a global war on terrorism for the past five years, and has been supplied with long-coveted US weapons and generous aid, but many Pakistanis see the United States as a fickle friend.

Reuters SBA VP0432