DURING a meeting in Islamabad, China’s Special Envoy on Afghanistan Yue Xiaoyong and Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Sohail Mahmood discussed the idea of extending China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project to Afghanistan which indeed will entail immense benefits not only for the war-torn country to rebuild its economy but also ensure flow of goods in the region up to the Central Asian States.
During a visit to Kabul, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had also expressed the willingness to push for extending the CPEC to Afghanistan.
Indeed, China has the resources to build the necessary road and rail infrastructure to make connectivity smoother between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
This will be win-win cooperation as whilst ensuring regional connectivity it will promote local trade.
Both Afghanistan and the Central Asian States which are landlocked countries will then also be able to benefit from the ports of Gwadar and Karachi for their trade with the rest of the world.
Given its immense benefits, there should not be any delay in execution of the extension project after deliberations with the Afghan authorities.
Pakistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan have already envisaged construction of a five billion dollars rail line which will link Peshawar and Tashkent via Kabul.
If China becomes part of this project, this will help ensure its early completion. Then there is also dire need to upgrade the rail infrastructure of Pakistan Railways from Karachi to Peshawar as this will prove to be an important connectivity route for cheap transportation of goods from the markets in Afghanistan and Central Asia to Pakistan and to onward places.
Hence, obstacles in the way of ML-1 should be removed to reap its true benefits.
We believe that the CPEC’s footprints in Afghanistan will also have a spillover effect in the reconstruction process of Afghanistan.
This will definitely encourage the Chinese companies to make their investment in different sectors of Afghanistan’s economy.
This path of development in fact is the way forward to ensure lasting peace and prosperity in Afghanistan which will have a salutary impact on the entire region.
We once again commend Chinese President Xi Jinping’s vision of shared prosperity and we are confident that this path will be pursued with much more vigour and determination in the months and years ahead to bring a real change in the life of the people of this region.
