THE very fact that Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Nong Rong met Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa for umpteen times to discuss issues relating to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is reflective of his deep commitment to take the historic initiative to its full fruition despite various odds and challenges.
He interacted with the COAS once again on Wednesday to take stock of the progress of CPEC, regional security and measures to enhance bilateral cooperation in different fields.
We have been emphasizing in these columns that despite repeated claims and assurances by Pakistani leaders the pace of implementation of the CPEC projects has not been satisfactory mainly because of our inability to remove various bottlenecks.
Developmental projects lose their importance and tend to become a burden on national exchequer because of cost escalation in case of undue delays.
Unlike scores of other projects that met this fate, the CPEC projects were implemented within the given timeframe and many of them are now contributing their share to the national economy.
However, the progress of the work on different projects and programmes was badly affected during the last three years due to lack of required interest on our part and also security lapses that gave rise to concerns by the Chinese government and the workforce working on various projects.
These concerns were compounded by terrorist attack on a bus carrying Chinese engineers working on Dasu dam, the work on which stands suspended despite its huge significance for our economy.
In this backdrop, the Army Chief did well by reaffirming Pakistan’s commitment to providing full security to Chinese projects and citizens working in the country.
It is always better to beef up security than to make heavy compensations after loss of precious lives and we hope the armed forces would ensure comprehensive and foolproof security especially when some local and foreign forces were active to harm the CPEC.
The Chinese Ambassador is proactively working to sort out all issues to the satisfaction of the two countries.
His meetings with General Bajwa and other senior officials ahead of the scheduled visit of the Prime Minister to China are timely and relevant as these would help pave the way to make the visit result-oriented.
