VICE Foreign Minister of China Sun Weidong has said that over the past decade, as an important pioneering project of the BRI, China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has achieved fruitful results and become a new benchmark for the friendship between China and Pakistan. In an exclusive interview with PTV News, he pointed out that the CPEC projects “are flourishing all across Pakistan”, making a “tangible contribution” to the national development of the country and to regional connectivity as well.
It is, indeed, one of the most authentic assessments of the CPEC initiative as Sun Weidong was the ambassador of China to Pakistan from 2013-17, a period that witnessed monumental progress of the initiative. He remained closely associated with all aspects of implementation of CPEC and, therefore, his assessment assumes greater significance. People of Pakistan are fully convinced that no other domestic or foreign-assisted package benefited the country more than the CPEC as it is connecting the length and breadth of Pakistan with the international standard communication network. Over the last ten years, 36 projects were initiated under the umbrella of the CPEC and many of them have already been completed. These projects including Gwadar Port, infrastructure, energy and industry sector (projects) brought 25.4 billion dollars of direct investment to Pakistan. All projects are contributing their share to socio-economic development of Pakistan but there can be no two opinions that it would have been a daunting task for the country to develop Gwadar Port sans all-round Chinese cooperation and assistance. It is rapidly becoming a regional hub for trade and investment, thanks to the Chinese investment in developing its infrastructure, connectivity, civic facilities and removal of bottlenecks in the way of its development. Exploitation of its full potential can take care of the country’s worrisome foreign debt besides transforming the lot of people of Balochistan. We hope relevant ministries and institutions particularly the newly created Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) would pay special attention to all issues that hamper speedy completion of projects in Gwadar and initiation of new ones necessary for optimum utilization of the port.
