"It's a pleasant surprise, and very heartwarming, to see handicrafts from my hometown here." Inside the Xinjiang International Grand Bazaar in Urumqi, Abab Ali Asghar, a senior correspondent for Pakistan Television, stopped at a shop selling Pakistani goods, carefully examining the Pakistani handmade copper lamps, carved copper vases, jade pendants and other handicrafts before him.

On the 20th, the "China Tour of Pakistani Media and Think Tank Personnel" event arrived in Urumqi, Xinjiang. Asghar, together with eight Pakistani companions, walked into the Xinjiang International Grand Bazaar, the "Window to the World." This "reunion" spanning nearly 1,700 kilometers thrilled Asghar. He said the small shop before him was like a bridge, blending tradition, culture and art, and also connecting the solid friendship between Pakistan and China.

On August 20, Abab Ali Asghar, a senior correspondent for Pakistan Television, talks with Pakistani merchant Akhtar Hussain inside a Pakistani shop at the Xinjiang International Grand Bazaar.

Akhtar Hussain, the shop manager of the Pakistani goods store and a Pakistani merchant, has settled in Xinjiang for more than 30 years and has done business near the Grand Bazaar for nearly 20 years. He married a local wife and can communicate with customers fluently in Chinese. When the weather is fine, walking to the pedestrian street beside the Grand Bazaar to watch the "Dawaz" performance has become a habit for Hussain.

According to records, as early as the Han Dynasty, China established trade ties with Pakistan through the ancient Silk Road. Today, Pakistani goods are shipped to China even more conveniently. Hussain and his wife have also tried livestreaming to sell goods: "Many people are interested, and buyers come from China, the United States, France, Japan and other countries and regions."

Today's Xinjiang International Grand Bazaar brings together more than 3,000 shops and receives a peak of over 200,000 visitors in a single day. Maraj Farooq, deputy editor-in-chief and chief digital editor of Pakistan's Daily Unity, bought a Xinjiang-style refrigerator magnet here and planned to pick out several hand-woven scarves for his family. "The quality of goods here is better than what is sold in Pakistan itself. I hope that through deepening trade cooperation with China, Pakistan can also produce higher-quality products," he said.

On August 20, Pakistani media and think tank personnel visit the Innovation and Development Corridor of the Urumqi Economic and Technological Development Zone.

What attracted the attention of the Pakistani media and think tank personnel was not only the dazzling array of small commodities, but also the technology-empowered "hardware."

That day, inside the Xinjiang Software Park in the Innovation and Development Corridor of the Urumqi Economic and Technological Development Zone, a BeiDou satellite positioning device aroused the interest of the Pakistani media personnel. This new-generation smart livestock product, developed based on narrowband Internet of Things communication, can be worn on livestock to automatically collect information such as their location, vital signs and environment, helping herders achieve remote grazing supervision.

"Are all the components produced in China?" "Can ordinary herders afford it?" After receiving affirmative answers, Tahir Ali, a news reporter for Pakistan's The Nation, gave a thumbs-up.

At the Xinjiang Software Park, the Pakistani media personnel also personally tried products such as a handheld satellite communication system, an iFlytek translator and a Tianyu BeiDou positioning card. "Before coming to Xinjiang, I thought such high-tech industrial parks would only appear in Shenzhen and Shanghai. I never expected Xinjiang to have them too," said Maraj Farooq.

On August 20, inside the Xinjiang Software Park in the Innovation and Development Corridor of the Urumqi Economic and Technological Development Zone, Pakistani media and think tank personnel gather in front of a BeiDou satellite model.

Since 2013, as an important project of the Belt and Road cooperation, China and Pakistan have jointly built the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Now, 10 years later, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor will usher in an "upgraded version" that places greater emphasis on cooperation in industry and technology. "From my perspective, more Pakistani companies will settle in the Xinjiang Software Park in the future," said Yasir Habib Khan, founder and president of the Pakistan Institute of International Relations and Media Studies.

"Some of the high-tech products and equipment we produce have already been sold to Central and South Asia," said Xu Xiang, a senior engineer at the Digital Development Bureau of the Urumqi Economic and Technological Development Zone. "In the future, we hope to further leverage Xinjiang's advantages in multilingual and multimodal software information services and open up a new 'information channel' on top of the traditional trade routes."