The nuclear agreement was among a dozen economic cooperation accords signed during President Asif Ali Zardari's recent visit to Beijing, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said on Saturday.

While Mr Qureshi gave few details, enhanced cooperation with China will likely help offset Pakistan's resentment of a recent deal allowing US businesses to sell nuclear fuel, technology and reactors to neighboring archrival India.

US officials including Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher, who held talks in Islamabad on Saturday, have rejected Pakistani calls for equal treatment - usually with reference to Pakistan's past history of leaking sensitive nuclear secrets.

Chinese leaders 'do recognise Pakistan's need, and China is one country that at international forums has clearly spoken against the discriminatory nature' of the US-India pact, Mr Qureshi said at a news conference.

China, a major investor and arms supplier for Pakistan, shares Islamabad's fierce regional rivalry with India.

China already has helped Pakistan build a nuclear power plant at Chashma, about 200km southwest of the capital, Islamabad. Work on a second nuclear plant is in progress and is expected to be completed in 2011.

The Chashma III and Chashma IV reactors would provide Pakistan - where chronic power shortages are contributing to a gathering economic crisis - with an additional 680 megawatts of generating capacity, Mr Qureshi said.

He did not say when they would be built or what assistance China would provide.

Nor did he discuss any measures to prevent nuclear materials from the new plants from being diverted to Pakistan's atomic weapons program.

Pakistan, which began operating its first nuclear power station with Canadian assistance in 1972, has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the main international agreement meant to stem the spread of nuclear weapons technology.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment on Qureshi's remarks.

However, Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said on Thursday that China, which signed the NPT in the 1990s, was willing to continue its cooperation with Pakistan on nuclear programmes - provided they are peaceful, in line with its international commitments and supervised by the IAEA.

International sanctions were slapped on Pakistan after it detonated its first nuclear charges in 1998 in response to similar tests by India.

The sanctions were eased after Mr Musharraf agreed to help Washington hunt down Al-Qaeda terrorists responsible for the Sept 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

But the revelation in 2004 that the architect of Islamabad's nuclear programme, Abdul Qadeer Khan, had passed nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea set back Pakistan's hopes of becoming a trusted member of the world's exclusive nuclear club.

Mr Boucher told reporters last week that the pact with India was 'unique' and that a similar agreement with Pakistan was 'just not on the table'.

He said Washington would help Pakistan develop its huge coal reserves, expand hydroelectric power generation and build wind farms on its Arabian Sea coast. -- AP