Pakistan Showcases Trade and Investment Opportunities in China

Pakistan opened a dedicated national pavilion at the China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) 2026 in Beijing on Wednesday, using one of China's largest services-sector platforms to pitch Pakistani firms to Chinese buyers and investors.

Pakistan's Ambassador to China, Khalil Hashmi, inaugurated the pavilion. He described it as part of a wider campaign to draw Chinese capital into 21 sectors the government has flagged as priorities, ranging from agriculture and energy to technology and healthcare.

Six B2B conferences, 650 MOUs, $22 billion in commitments

The headline numbers came from the embassy's own investment drive. Hashmi said the Embassy of Pakistan in Beijing and its four consulates across China have organised six major business-to-business investment conferences covering agriculture, home appliances and electrical equipment, IT and telecom, battery energy storage, and pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and healthcare.

Together, those six events have generated investment commitments worth roughly $22 billion across more than 650 memoranda of understanding.

The more interesting figure is the conversion rate. Only about 30 percent of those MOUs have moved past the signing stage into actual agreements, contracts, factories or plants. That works out to around $7 billion materialised on the ground — a substantial sum, but a reminder that signed paper and built capacity are very different things in the Pakistan-China investment relationship.

Hashmi did not gloss over the gap. He framed the next phase as one that has to be driven by companies rather than governments, with the embassy stepping back from matchmaking and firms on both sides building direct commercial relationships.

New institutional plumbing

Two structures are being set up to support that shift.

The Pakistan-China Chamber of Commerce and Industry in China is close to formal establishment, giving Pakistani businesses an organised body inside the Chinese market rather than relying entirely on diplomatic missions.

Separately, work is underway to create a Pakistan-China Commercial Center in Beijing's Fengtai District. The centre is intended as a physical base for Pakistani enterprises looking to hold a presence in the Chinese capital — showroom space, offices and a landing point for firms that currently have no footprint in China at all.

Who is exhibiting

More than two dozen Pakistani companies are taking part in CIFTIS 2026, drawn from agriculture, energy, infrastructure, trade in services and healthcare. A dedicated business conference is scheduled on the sidelines of the fair on Friday, where Pakistani and Chinese firms will explore partnership options directly.

CIFTIS is a useful venue for this particular pitch. Unlike the goods-focused expos Pakistan usually attends in China, CIFTIS centres on services — IT, telecom, healthcare, finance, professional services — which is where Pakistan has been trying to reposition its export mix. Textiles, rice and minerals still dominate the country's shipments to China, and the services side remains thin by comparison.

Part of a busier year

The Beijing pavilion is the latest in a run of Pakistani trade appearances across China in 2026, all timed around the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

In June, Pakistan turned up at the 10th China-South Asia Exposition in Kunming with around 150 stalls, 130 companies and 327 exhibitors. In July, the embassy co-hosted an industry promotion and matchmaking conference in Lanzhou, where Pakistan served as Guest Country of Honour at the China Lanzhou Investment and Trade Fair. In early September, the fifth Pakistan Investment and Business Environment Exchange Forum in Guangzhou produced five MOUs covering electric vehicle joint ventures, battery manufacturing, building materials and furniture, pine nut procurement, and medical and business tourism.

Pakistan's exports to China reached $1.87 billion in the first half of 2026, up 50.3 percent year on year — a strong figure, though from a base that still leaves the trade balance heavily tilted toward Chinese goods flowing the other way.

Hashmi's closing remark at the pavilion was measured rather than triumphant. "This is a great beginning, but it is a long way to go," he said, calling for sustained effort from businesses and institutions in both countries.

Given that roughly $15 billion of signed commitments have yet to turn into anything physical, that reads less like modesty and more like an accurate assessment.