Chairman Pakistan People's Party, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari participated in the opening ceremony of the ICAPP conference on 'Development and People's Access' here on Sunday. He is leading a PPP delegation comprising Jahangir Bader, Secretary General PPP; Barrister Masood Kausar, Governor Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa; MNA Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, Secretary General, PPPP and Hasham Riaz Shaikh, Special Assistant to Chairman PPP.
Other prominent leaders present on this occasion included the President of Timor Leste, Deputy Prime Minister of Cambodia and Vice President of Laos. The conference is being attended by about 150 delegates representing 53 political parties from 26 countries of Asia, including Turkey, Japan, Iran, Uzbekistan, South Korea, India, Bangladesh, Laos, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Cambodia, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Message of Chinese Vice President, Xi Jinping was read out on this occasion, while video message of UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon was played to the audience.
This conference has been arranged by the Communist Party of China (CPC) under the auspices of International Conference of Asian Political Parties.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari also met Zhou Yong Kang, Member of China's Politburo Standing Committee of the 17th CPC Central Committee, who is one of the most influential leaders of China.
During the meeting Bilawal Bhutto said that it is a matter of satisfaction that Pakistan and China enjoy complete convergence of interest on all bilateral issues as well as international issues of mutual importance.
The two leaders stressed on the need to further strengthen Pakistan-China relations in the years to come.
Ambassador Masood Khan was also present in the meeting.
Chairman Bilawal along with his delegation later attended a banquet hosted by CPC Guangxi Committee and People's Government of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
Earlier, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari visited the Affordable Housing Project in Nanning and was given briefing by Deputy Director General of the Guangxi Housing and Urban Development Department.
The Chairman was briefed about the low income housing project and was told that all 14 cities of Guangxi province have such projects for the low income group people. He was informed that this year the Guangxi provincial government plans to construct 1.88 million square meters of housing at a cost of RMB 3.2 billion. It is expected that in five years time such projects would cover 20 percent of urban housing in the province.
After the briefing the Chairman also visited a family living in the Funing Xinxing Yuan low cost residential community. He appreciated the idea of providing low cost housing to the poor and inquired about insurance, mortgage as well as the provision and standard of civic facilities provided to the residents.
The Chairman also visited the Beihu Nanmian Community Health Service Centre where he took a detailed tour of all the sections and was given briefing on Primary medical and healthcare service in a Beihu Nanmian community.
The delegation was informed that the Health Service Centre provides a combination of western medicine and traditional Chinese medical treatment and is benefiting a population of more than 50,000.
During briefing the Vice Mayor of Nanning said that due to the efforts of this Centre for providing free basic public health service to residents including vaccination as well as maternal and child healthcare, the maternal deaths and neo-natal mortality rate has been brought down to zero in the community while life expectancy has increased to 73.29 years which is more than the national average.