The Karachi port, Pakistan. [Photo/CFP]

China will build in Karachi four of eight submarines that it is selling to Pakistan, Pakistan's Minister for Defense Production Rana Tanveer Hussain said in Islamabad, the Pakistani newspaper the Dawn reported last week.

Hussain was quoted as saying that the deal for the acquisition of submarines from China has been finalized and four of them would be built in Pakistan.

Hussain further said that construction of the submarines would simultaneously begin in Pakistan and China. Beijing, he said, would transfer the technology to Islamabad for submarine construction, according to the report.

He did not specify when the construction would begin, but said it would happen soon. A training center would also be set up in Karachi, says the report.

The minister did not spell out which type of submarines were being purchased from China. It is, however, speculated that the deal is for Yuan-class Type-041 diesel-electric submarines equipped with AIP systems.

China and Pakistan signed 51 agreements and memorandums of understanding worth $46 billion during President Xi Jinping's visit to Pakistan early month this year.

More than 30 agreements are designed to boost the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project connecting Kashgar in China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region to Gwadar Port on the Arabian Sea.

As the early results of the planned corridor, 25 projects are scheduled to be completed in the next three to five years.