The 27th of October in Washington, DC, USA: ARY News claimed that Pakistan’s Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb has asked the Chinese government to increase the amount of money that can be swapped between the two countries to 40 billion Chinese Yuan.

Liao Min, China’s Vice Minister of Finance, met with Aurangzeb in Washington, DC. A news statement said that Aurangzeb repeated Islamabad’s resolve to strengthen the strategic relationship between Pakistan and China.

ARY News claimed that he thanked the Chinese government for always supporting Pakistan’s economic and social growth and for helping to get the IMF’s Extended Fund Facility (EFF).

Aurangzeb said that Pakistan wants to learn from China’s experiences with economic change. He also praised the move by Chinese automaker BYD to sell electric cars in Pakistan.

He also told the Chinese officials that Pakistan was going to issue its first Panda bond on the Chinese market in order to have more ways to get money.

ARY News reports that the finance minister said that Pakistani officials would make sure that Chinese workers were safe and that many Chinese companies want to increase their spending and create more jobs in Pakistan.

“Both sides emphasised the need for online payment settlements and integration of the two countries’ payment systems,” it said.

At the same time, the finance minister met with Andrew Torre, who is the Regional President for VISA. He praised the company’s work to modernize Pakistan’s payments environment, which includes supporting local payment systems like 1Link.

ARY News reports that Aurangzeb praised Visa’s launch of the Financial Inclusion Card in partnership with Meezan Bank. He stressed the need for more route choices for clients and fair competition for handling domestic transactions.

Muhammad Aurangzeb also met with Mohammad Kallala, who is the Global Head of Corporate and Investment Banking at Natixis. Kallala told us about how Natixis works in areas like green energy, transportation, flight, telecommunications, and technology.

They talked about working together with investors from the Gulf, especially Saudi Arabia, to help fund projects in Pakistan and give buyers advice. Kallala said that the bank plans to work with a few well-known Pakistani companies to make these purchases possible.

Both sides agreed that continuing to work together was important going forward.