The Islamabad Institute of Conflict Resolution (IICR) organized an online conference titled ‘China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) Intra-Regional Cooperation Beyond South Asia.”
It was arranged to highlight and broaden the concept of CPEC in a broader aspect. The panelists included Dr Talat Shabbir, Director of Pakistan-China Study Centre, Naghmana Hashmi, Former Ambassador to China; Professor Zhou Rong, Senior Fellow at Renmin University, China and Dawood Butt, Chief Executive Officer K-Bot. Sabah Aslam, Executive Director of IICR, moderated the session, said a statement released on Sunday.
While speaking to the panel, Dr Talat Shabbir talked about the high economic stakes involved in CPEC of both China and Pakistan. Keeping in view the stakes, Pakistan shifted its policy from Geo-strategy to Geo-Economics, he maintained.
He added that there were two more corridors under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) from which Pakistan can benefit; one is China’s Central and West Asia Corridor, and the other is New Eurasian Land Bridge.
Naghmana Hashmi stressed that the whole idea of CPEC was to go beyond the region, and it does that by providing the shortest route to other regions. Furthermore, she said that the whole idea of going beyond the region could not be fully practised if the challenges of Afghanistan could not be solved.
“Afghanistan can only be the ground of opportunities and avenues for CPEC if Pakistan has more to offer other than humanitarian assistance,” Hashmi remarked.
Professor Zhou Rong mentioned that China worked on the philosophy of creating a better world and shared future of Humanity, and this has been implemented through BRI and CPEC so those friendly countries can have a better way of life.
It is not hidden that the bond both countries share goes decades back; both played irreplaceable roles for each other, said Professor Rong.
He further said that Pakistani people need to understand China more to enhance the interaction between countries. He added that CPEC enabled Pakistan to train its people for the future. Phase-I is done, Phase-II is going on, and Phase-III will be soon operational.
Hassan Daud Butt underscored that Pakistan has about 220 million population, and more people mean more jobs. The job market can only be filled through the strong innovative economy, and CPEC was playing its key role in it.
He opined that investments could only come if there is suitable and substantial infrastructure. Unless there is proper infrastructure, there will not be any investment, he stated.
