A group photo of Principal Xue Hongwei and colleagues from SCAU with the Pakistani officials

On the occasion that Pakistani Prime Minister Anwaar ul Haq Kakar and three ministers came to China to attend the 3rd Belt and Road International Cooperation Summit Forum, at the invitation of Pakistani partners and the Pakistani Embassy in China, On October 17, Xue Hongwei, the president of SCAU, went to Beijing to hold talks with the Minister of Industry and Commerce and the Minister of Finance of Pakistan, and was invited to attend a dinner hosted by the embassy.

  During the meeting, Xue Hongwei introduced SCAU along the “Belt and Road” in recent years to Gohar Ejaz, Minister of Industry and Commerce of Pakistan, and Shamshad Akhtar, Minister of Finance. An overview of the country’s agricultural science and education cooperation, and also focused on the projects and cooperation prospects between SCAU and Pakistan counterparts, pointing out that China and Pakistan have broad prospects for cooperation in crop breeding, smart agriculture and other fields. The ministers fully affirmed the efforts and contributions made by SCAU to China-Pakistan agricultural science and education, and expressed their expectation that more agricultural scientific research projects would take root and jointly create a model of agricultural science and education cooperation under the “Belt and Road” initiative.

It is reported that SCAU would actively participate in the national “Belt and Road” agricultural cooperation and has a long history of cooperation with Pakistani universities and institutions in the fields of academic education, technical training, scientific research and other fields, and has trained a large number of high-level international students and agricultural technical talents for Pakistan. In 2009, the then President of Pakistan, Asif Zardari, visited SCAU and witnessed the signing of a memorandum of cooperation between SCAU and Sindh Agricultural University. In recent years, SCAU has signed cooperation agreements with many peers in Pakistan, including Pakistan Agricultural University, Sindh Agricultural University, Sargodar University and Rawalpindi Arid Agriculture University. In 2018, SCAU and the University of Sargodar in Pakistan jointly established the China-Pakistan Agricultural Research Institute to carry out expert exchanges in citrus greening disease, key technologies for precision agricultural aviation, tropical fruit technology, efficient utilization of phosphorus resources and mechanization of sugarcane production. The cooperation results of the China-Brazil Citrus Pest Management Joint Research Center established in 2019 have received widespread attention from the media of China and Pakistan.

In addition, SCAU and the “Belt and Road” Development Co., Ltd. signed a joint agreement to jointly build the "China-Pakistan Smart Agriculture Research Institute". At present, four soybean varieties bred by the team of Professor Nian Hai of SCAU have been sown and tested in Pakistan.