Zhongguancun Belt and Road Industrial Promotion Association of the People’s Republic Of China (ZBRA) and Special Technology Zones Authority (STZA) on Monday signed a Letter to Intent (LOI) at a virtual ceremony to promote high-quality science and technological exchanges between Pakistan and China.
The LOI was signed by Zhang Xiaodong, the President ZBRA, and Amer Hashmi, the Chairman of STZA in the presence of Moin ul Haque, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China, and Khalid Mansoor, the Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) Affairs, said an official statement.
Under the framework of China-Pakistan cooperation, ZBRA will work jointly with STZA on deepening all-around cooperation among academic institutions, R&D centers, industries, and technological enterprises of the two countries.
STZA aims to initiate a collaboration with ZBRA to promote science and technology exchanges between Pakistan and China including information sharing on science and technology development experiences, development of a complete ecosystem, new and emerging technologies, and construction and management of technology zones.
Both parties aimed to facilitate exchanges between high-tech enterprises of both countries in the areas of Semiconductors, Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, FinTech, Blockchain, and Biotech for mutually beneficial cooperation.
Zhongguancun Science Park, also known as Z-Park, was established in 1988 as one of the first science parks and first national innovation demonstration centres in China. It is also known today as the “Silicon Valley of China”. Covering an area of 488 square kilometres, Z-Park includes 16 member-parks, and is home to nearly 22,000 high-tech companies.
Global companies like Lenovo, Baidu, BOE, Didi-global, Xiaomi and Beigene started up from Z-Park, as did over 80 Unicorn companies such as Toutiao, Mggvii and Cambricon.
Over 200 branches and R&D centers of the world’s Top 500 companies have offices at Zhongguancun Science Park.
ZBRA and STZA envision creating a complete ecosystem to transform Pakistan’s tech sector by knowledge sharing on science and technology development experience, emerging technologies, and jointly organizing activities to promote practical exchanges on science and technology commercialization, and high-end talent cultivation.
This collaboration is another cornerstone of STZA’s goal of transforming Pakistan’s human capital into a high-end future workforce within the tech industry of Pakistan and creating many opportunities for the youth of Pakistan. STZA envisions that this partnership between ZBRA and STZA will maximize the potential capabilities of the tech industry of both countries.
ZBRA is an organization headquartered in Beijing, China and legally registered with the Beijing Civil Affairs Bureau.
ZBRA’s mission is to serve Chinese enterprises for high-quality development of the Belt and Road, which will be achieved through projects docking, science and technology parks cooperation, and international talent training.
