Muhammad Zamir Assadi
China Pakistan Economic Corridor, the flagship project of Belt and Road Initiative has emerged as a success story of development project at the global arena in just initial 10 years of its construction since its launch in 2013 with the joint collaboration of Pakistan and China under the visionary leadership of both sides.
At the 10th anniversary of this mega initiative, the CPEC has come forward as a growth axis and a development belt featuring complementary advantages, collaboration, mutual benefits and common prosperity.
With the comprehensive transportation corridor and industrial cooperation between China and Pakistan as the main axis, and with concrete economic and trade cooperation, and people-to-people exchange and cultural communications as the engine, CPEC has developed a strong base on major collaborative projects for infrastructure construction, industrial development and livelihood improvement, aimed at socio economic development, prosperity and security in regions along it.
In this stage of development, Pakistan has proceeded with all-weather strategic partnership of cooperation, concepts of harmony, inclusiveness, mutual benefits and sustainability with China.
Besides seizing opportunities presented by China’s economic development, transformation and upgrade, and joint construction of the Belt and Road Initiative, the country has capitalized on the favorable environment created by the extensive consensus on the Vision 2025, growing economic and social stability and a new round of robust growth in Pakistan.
It has fully leveraged China’s industrial, capital, and institutional advantages in the light of Pakistan’s market, demographic dividend and geographical imperatives.
Through mutual consultations, China and Pakistan have shared responsibilities and fruits, form a “1+4” collaboration pattern (featuring the CPEC as the center and four priorities, namely the Gwadar port, Energy, Transport Infrastructure and Industrial Cooperation).
The incredible success story of CPEC has brought China and Pakistan closer to each other with the physical economic bond of this mega initiative to form a community of indivisible common destiny.
In this period of development, the Chinese and Pakistani governments are the advocator, planner and guider of the CPEC project. Considering the Chinese and Pakistani economic systems, commercial projects related to the CPEC have been operated in a market-oriented way; quasi-commercial major infrastructure projects have adopt the public private partnership mode; and noncommercial projects concerning people’s livelihood have involved multiple participants and have implemented through fair competition.
As per the meaningful and joint consultation China and Pakistan jointly prepared plans, divide financing responsibilities based on the project situation and their respective investment and financing strength, give play to their respective comparative advantage in project construction and implementation, and shared fruits based on the match of their cost, risk and returns.
In these years, China and Pakistan have also done the great boost to information connectivity and promoted pragmatic cooperation through construction and operation of local communication networks and broadcast & TV networks besides strengthening information and communication industries in both countries and synchronous construction of information, road and railway infrastructure.
China and Pakistan strengthened cooperation in the fields of oil and gas, electricity and power grids, and focused on promoting the construction of major projects of thermal power, hydropower, coal gasification and renewable power generation, and supporting power transmission networks, in order to enhance its power transmission and supply reliability.
This collaboration under CPEC have Promoted the cooperation in the development of oil and gas resources, research on the integrated vision and demand of China and Pakistan oil and gas cooperation so as to improve the cooperation between the two countries and diversify oil supplies.
It has optimized the sourcing and use of coal, and research on development and utilization of Pakistan’s own coal for power plant and developing technologies for surface coal gasification, expansion and augmentation of coal mining sector and actively promoted river planning and preparatory work of major projects to accelerate the hydropower development process.
It has witnessed the development of wind and solar energy based on local conditions, and established diversified energy supply channels while strengthening the construction of high voltage-class power grids and power transmission and distribution networks to fulfill the electricity demand and ensured the reliability of electricity supply in Pakistan.
The cooperation has also developed the industry for manufacturing of energy sector equipment’s required for generation, transmission and distribution including renewable energy technologies.
In this period of time, China and Pakistan strengthened cooperation in trade and industrial areas, expand bilateral economic and trade relations, and enhanced the level of bilateral trade liberalization.
CPEC has also expanded the cooperation in industry, promoted Pakistan’s industries from assembling imported parts and components to localized production of parts, and encourage various forms of Chinese enterprises to enter the Pakistan market to improve the development of energy efficient industry in Pakistan.
We have also recorded that it has promoted the industrial capacity cooperation in sectors such as: chemical & pharmaceutical, engineering goods, agro, iron & steel, light manufacturing & home appliances and construction materials, and use efficient, energy-saving and environmental friendly processes and equipment to meet the demands of Pakistan’s local markets and at the same time to further expand it to the international market.
With the investment of more than 26 billion USD under CPEC framework, creation of 2,50,000 jobs, development of Gwadar port, Gwadar international airport, addition of 8000 MW power to national grid, building of 510 kilometers of highways and 932 kilometers of road network, laying of 820-kilometer long optical fiber line, one HVDC transmission line with an evacuation capacity of 4,000 MW and many other benefits have transformed the socio-economic landscape of Pakistan and much more is yet to be generated in the next phase and decade of CPEC.
