DHAKA: Afghanistan and China pledged a new long-term partnership with each other Thursday as Kabul’s new president Ashraf Ghani began a four-day visit while NATO combat troops prepare to withdraw from his country.

Ghani, once a US-based academic, was sworn in as Afghanistan’s new head of state last month in the war-torn Asian nation’s first democratic transfer of power.

His first state visit as president is to resource-hungry China, which is seeking greater investment opportunities in Afghanistan.

‘We look at China as a strategic partner, in the short term, medium term, long term and very long term,’ he told Chinese president Xi Jinping at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, reports The Straits Times.

BDST: 2154 HRS, OCT 28, 2014