Sargodha University joins China’s Belt and Road Agri Education League

BEIJING, June 30 (APP)::The University of Sargodha has become the first public sector university from Pakistan to join China’s Belt and Road/South-South Cooperation Agricultural Education, Science and Technology Innovation League.
The membership certificate was awarded to Vice Chancellor, Sargodha University, Dr Ishtiaq Ahmad who was accompanied by Dean of Agriculture Dr Muhammad Afzal at a ceremony held here at China Agricultural University (CAU).
The two-day event was attended by vice-chancellors, presidents and the university officials from more than 70 participating nations from different regions along the Belt and Road Initiative.
“The league will uphold the concept of peaceful cooperation, opening inclusiveness, mutual learning, mutual benefits and win-win effects and be committed to advancing the close cooperation among the members in areas such as agricultural research, technical application, policy dialogue, talent cultivation and cultural communication,” states the Joint Declaration issued on the occasion.
CAU President, Dr Sun Qixin, in his opening remarks, said the affluent agricultural resources of over 70 countries along the Belt and Road provide extremely large space for agricultural cooperation, which China is already steering through extensive capital investment, technology transfer and product development.
Top officials from the Chinese ministries of commerce, agriculture and rural affairs and agriculture research centers also addressed the audience, with Dr Li Xiaoyun, Chair of the China International Development Research Network, emphasizing the enormous contribution that development of agriculture can help in reduction of poverty, urbanization, industrialization and global opening up of the economy.
According to these officials, as a result of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the agricultural investment cooperation between China and Pakistan is fast expanding from crop-planting-oriented to such fields as infrastructure construction, agriculture products processing and agricultural informatization.
Sargodha University has already benefited from this transition, by following up two agreements it has so far concluded with two leading Chinese agriculture universities: in dryland agriculture with Lanzhou University and in citrus and sugarcane research with South China Agriculture University.
Around 61 graduates and faculty members from its Faculty of Agriculture are currently enrolled in post-graduate studies at various Chinese universities, including several in CAU, China’s oldest agriculture university.
Membership of the Belt and Road Agricultural Education, Science and Technology Innovation League will enable the University to benefit from more than 100 full scholarships from CAU alone for its graduates and scholars, apart from other benefits in research funding, technology transfer and product development in agricultural sciences.