The Global Social Network
On a visit to Changzhou last year, Pakistani-American tech executive Jalil Shaikh ate at MandS Restaurant, a Pakistani restaurant in the city of Changzou. He met its Pakistani owner and several young Pakistanis attending universities there. He learned that here are scores of Pakistanis in Changzou and most of them are reachable on a WeChat group. WeChat is a ubiquitous smartphone application similar to WhatsApp that serves as both mobile messaging and payment platform. Owned by Chinese social media giant TenCents, WeChat competes with China's e-commerce behemoth Alibaba's Alipay in mobile payments space which has rapidly grown in China. Jalil joined the Pakistani WeChat group in Changzhou and invited its members to dinner and Karaoke singing at MandS Restaurant. About 40 Pakistanis, mostly students, showed up. Many of the Changzhou Pakistanis, including girls, are from families living in small towns and villages in Pakistan. Many get fully funded scholarships with full tuition, room and board as well as a monthly stipend of 1,700 RMB for Master's degree students and 2,000 RMB for PhD candidates. China gets the benefit of the research work and publications produced by them. https://www.southasiainvestor.com/2019/01/growing-pakistani-presence-in-china.html
Tags:
Location: Changzhou, China
Comment
South Asia Investor Review
Investor Information Blog
Haq's Musings
Riaz Haq's Current Affairs Blog
Dr. Danish Saleheen, a Pakistani-American professor at Columbia University, and his fellow researchers have published a comprehensive analysis of 173,303 genomes from Pakistan, one of the largest genomic studies ever conducted in South Asia. This landmark work is upending how scientists understand human genetics and drug development. "South Asians have been severely underrepresented in genome studies—comprising just 2% of global genomic databases despite representing 25% of…
ContinuePosted by Riaz Haq on June 26, 2026 at 7:30pm
A 2024 joint study of the International Labor Organization and the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Authority (SMEDA) estimated Pakistan's undocumented economy at $457 billion. While other South Asian nations, particularly Bangladesh and India, do include estimated undocumented GDP figures in their official GDP, Pakistan's official GDP figures do not include such estimates. If the Pakistani government decides to include estimates of the informal economy in its official…
ContinuePosted by Riaz Haq on June 19, 2026 at 7:30am — 5 Comments
© 2026 Created by Riaz Haq.
Powered by
You need to be a member of PakAlumni Worldwide: The Global Social Network to add comments!
Join PakAlumni Worldwide: The Global Social Network