ISLAMABAD: Adviser to Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz on Monday said that some risks and challenges for China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects were spelt out by experts and former diplomats but hoped that Pakistan would be able to implement this crucial initiative.
Earlier, Chinese experts pointed out numbers of risks and challenges for the $46 billion CPEC, including opposing global environment, ethnic, regional and cultural differences and hitches over routes within Pakistan, saying that both the countries required considering collective interests instead of minor interests.
“No matter what are differences on different aspects, there is a need to bring consensus and pursue collective interests instead of minor interests,” President China Institute of International Studies Ambassador Su Ge said in the first formal session titled “Sharing the Future of Regional Development” during the CPEC Summit and Expo organised by the Ministry of Planning here on Monday. This session was moderated by the Planning Commission’s poverty chief Zafar Ul Hassan Almas.
Pakistan’s former ambassador Munir Akram said in his speech that several steps could be taken for further improving the CPEC projects, including ensuring more transparency, economic dispute resolution mechanism, scaling up industrialisation and creation of a CPEC Authority for ensuring more creativity and innovation.
He also proposed for creation of an equity fund, placing insurance cover, ensuring skill development and extending connectivity to all regions including, Afghanistan, Central Asia and even to India through Wagah border.
The Chinese expert, Su Ge, said the CPEC was the flagship programme to revive the old Silk Route, which would undertake projects related to energy, infrastructure, financial and science and technology. He spelt out the challenges and risks being faced by the CPEC and said that the global environment was averse to this project and number of internal problems such as differences on routes also came into the limelight.
On the occasion, Yan Zhiyong, Chairman Power Construction Corporation of China, said that One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative, the CPEC would connect South Asia with China and other parts of the region. “We are working on deep water and energy projects and we have accelerated partnership into the CPEC projects,” he added.
He said that they were conducting Energy Master Plan for Punjab and a number of other power sector projects as well as Lahore to Karachi Motorway projects. “We are working on these projects to ensure safety and environmental standards, ensuring transparency and state of the art technology,” he said and added that they would ensure efficiency in the CPEC projects.
“We possess technology edge and super technology will be used to ensure the best quality of power projects,” he added. Professor Du Youkang, Director Center for South Asian Studies & Pakistan Study Center, Institute of International Studies, Fudan University said that the goal of CPEC could be achieved if the objectives of OBOR were achieved successfully.
He mentioned that Pakistan’s PM has asked Kazakhstan to join the CPEC as it would ensure connectivity with Central Asia and Indian oceans. The AIIB like institutions will provide more funding.
Dr Safdar Sohail, Executive Director Planning Commission’s Center of Excellence, Islamabad, said that the CPEC possessed long-term plan from 2016 to 2030 and its short-term projects under the Early Harvest Project (EHP) would be completed by 2017-18, 2020, medium-term projects by 2025 and long-term by 2030.
He said that it was expected that the CPEC projects would help Pakistan for increasing its GDP growth by 1.5 percent during 2016 to 2020 and later on by 1 percent from 2020 to 2030.
The trade, he said, would go up by 24 percent from 2016-20. He said that they were not implementing the Asean model and success of the CPEC would depend on the performance of the whole stakeholders of this country.
When asked by former Secretary Dr Gulfraz Ahmed regarding estimated entry of trucks after completion of CPEC, Dr Safdar Sohail said that it was conservative estimate that 200 trucks would cross the border per day after completion of CPEC project. Sartaj Aziz said that the economic transformation achieved by China was not less than miracle as China achieved in three decades what other western countries could not achieve in one century.
The Chinese vision of shared vision, he said, would benefit to all neighboring regions as it would cover 60 countries having dividends for them in the guise of OBOR initiative undertaken by Chinese leadership.
The Silk Road Fund and AIIB, he said, made much differences related to procedures laid down by Western institutions. With CPEC, he said, that Pakistan could achieve accelerated but inclusive growth as it was the least connected region of the world. The CPEC will also reduce distance of western China, he added. www.thenews.com.pk/print/146383-Chinese-experts-point-out-risks-challenges-for-CPEC
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