During his visit to the historic Chinese Terracotta Warriors Museum, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif emphasized the importance of self-reliance, national pride, sovereignty, nationalism and patriotism. These values are essential for achieving the socio-economic prosperity, connectivity and infrastructure development envisioned in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project.
Prime Minister Sharif started his visit in Shenzhen, a city known for its financial and capital connectivity. Shenzhen is a hub for services, ICT, IT, digitalization, e-commerce, green technologies, investment, tourism, free trade zones, innovation, high-quality industrialization, artificial intelligence, smart living and human capital development. Emulating these strengths in Pakistan, especially in CPEC initiatives and at Gwadar port, could significantly advance the country’s development goals.
The Pakistan-China Business Conference held in Shenzhen saw the signing of 32 MoUs, strengthening Pak-China trade ties across various sectors, including agriculture, fertilizer, IT, mobile and pharmaceuticals. The participation of 500 Chinese companies and 100 Pakistani companies highlighted the growing role of the private sector in bilateral trade. This collaboration promises investment opportunities in the hotel industry, tourism, culture, sports goods, textile, decoration industry and airport designing. Shenzhen’s GDP grew by 6% last year to a new high of 3.46 trillion Yuan (US$450 billion), outpacing other first-tier cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. The city has adopted a new industrialization policy focused on intelligent and green manufacturing and the integrative development of manufacturing and service industries. This approach aims to accelerate industrial optimization and upgrading, fostering new productive forces such as new energy, intelligent vehicles and the low-altitude and aerospace economy. Additionally, Shenzhen offers low-cost computing power platforms to reduce barriers and costs for businesses and startup teams, promoting innovation and economic growth.
Critical analysis reveals that Shenzhen has transformed itself from a small fishing village into a global economic powerhouse in just over 40 years. It has experienced rapid economic, social and environmental transformation and is described as being innovative, inclusive, young and high-tech. The real explanation of Shenzhen’s success lies in firm ownership. Since those early FDI-dominated days, Shenzhen has become increasingly dominated by innovative indigenous firms, such as BYD, DJI and Tencent.
Compared to Shanghai, which derives its economic might from state-owned enterprises, Shenzhen’s corporate landscape is dominated by private-sector entrepreneurs. The pro-business and pro-innovation regulatory environment has forged wave after wave of self-made fortunes in Shenzhen. Over the past 10 years, Shenzhen and BRI countries have leveraged their respective strengths to deepen cooperation in infrastructure and emerging industries such as new energy vehicles, digital economy, and green technology. By the end of November 2023, Shenzhen firms had set up a total of 1,189 companies and institutions in BRI countries, with a cumulative agreed investment of US$12.5 billion.
Shenzhen’s trade with countries participating in the BRI reached an unprecedented 510.7 billion yuan (about $70.1 billion) in the first seven months of this year, marking a significant 16 percent year-on-year increase, according to Shenzhen Customs. The development and upgrading of the CPEC has great prospects, especially in terms of providing more benefits to livelihoods and boosting regional connectivity.
Prime Minister Sharif held talks with Premier Li Qiang of the State Council, and met with H.E. Zhao Leji, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. The Prime Minister also met with the Chinese President Xi Jinping. The joint statement highlighted the real essence of Pak-China friendship’s resilience, diversity, diplomatic strength, economic depth and political maturity negating all notions of slowing down promoting spirits of mutual respect, caring & sharing and practical execution of global community with shared prosperity. It further adhered to the principle of “planning together, building together, and benefiting together,” and promoted the construction of CPEC to achieve fruitful results, which has changed the rule of development.
Carrying out of the eight major steps for supporting high-quality BRI cooperation, forging an “upgraded version” of CPEC by jointly building a growth corridor, a livelihood-enhancing corridor, an innovation corridor, a green corridor and an open corridor, aligning with Pakistan’s 5Es Framework based on Exports, E-Pakistan, Environment, Energy, and Equity & Empowerment would benefit the two countries and their peoples. Reaffirmation of the up-gradation of ML-1 has strategic significance to Pakistan’s socio-economic development. It will be carried out in a “phased manner” and start working on financing modalities.
The recognition of the Karakoram Highway (Raikot-Thakot) realignment project is of great significance for the smooth operation of the only land-based channel between China and Pakistan. The advance up-gradation of the inspection infrastructure of the Khunjerab-Sost will facilitate the all-year-round function of the Khunjerab-Sost pass at an early date.
Recognizing the significance of Gwadar Port as an important role in trans-regional connectivity, the two sides were satisfied that the New Gwadar International Airport will soon be finished, and reiterated the need to speed up the development of the auxiliary infrastructure of the Gwadar Port in order to fully realize the potential of the coastal city, especially as a transshipment hub with a shipyard. The two sides signed the Action Plan for Framework Agreement on Industrial Cooperation under CPEC to strengthen industrial cooperation in various areas suited to their local conditions.
In summary, new rules of the game, sectors and SOPS in terms of mutual cooperation, survival, safety, security, investment, joint venture, private sector and future alignment have now been set guiding both countries to move forward. The development and upgrading of the CPEC has great prospects, especially in terms of providing more benefits to livelihoods and boosting regional connectivity paving a new path of progress, prosperity and economic diversification in the days to come.
It augurs well that China reiterated its commitment to Pakistan’s industrialization, and will encourage Chinese companies to invest in Pakistan’s Special Economic Zones in accordance with the market and commercial principles. The strengthening of long-term planning for mining cooperation promotes the implementation of the Agreement to Strengthen Mining and Industrial Cooperation under the CPEC Framework collectively.
The strengthening of cooperation in such areas as offshore oil and gas resources, and natural gas hydrate would be value addition. Last but not the least, practical cooperation for modernizing agriculture in Pakistan in areas such as seed technology, crop cultivation, drip irrigation, prevention and control of animal and plant diseases, agricultural mechanization, production capacity cooperation, and agricultural technology exchanges would further foster hybrid agricultural cooperation between two countries.
