Pakistan, China to start work on five new economic corridors

Celina Ali

Islamabad: Islamabad and Beijing will start work on five new economic corridors with the support of the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC), a civil-military hybrid body set up by Pakistan last year to attract foreign investment.

Pakistan says it has completed more than 50 projects worth $25 billion under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, with more than $65 billion pledged for road, rail and other infrastructure developments in the South Asian nation of 241 million people.

“The second phase of CPEC has been started with the facilitation of the Special Investment Facilitation Council,” Radio Pakistan reported, adding that the two nations would “work closely” on five new economic corridors linked to CPEC.

“These economic corridors include Innovation Corridor, Livelihood Corridor, Green Energy Corridor, Regional Development Corridor and Employment Creation Corridor.”

Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal has said the new corridors are part of CPEC Phase II.

China and Chinese commercial banks hold about 30 percent of Pakistan’s total external debt of about $100 billion, most of which has been loaned for CPEC projects.

The projects have also been threatened in recent years by militants, especially in the Balochistan province where China is building a deep sea port at Gwadar and runs a gold and copper mine.

On Tuesday, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said a series of coordinated attacks by separatist militants in Balochistan on Sunday night were aimed at stopping development projects that form part of CPEC.

The assaults, killing more than50, were the most widespread in years by ethnic militants seeking to win secession of the resource-rich province.

Beijing has previously flagged concerns about the security of its citizens working on projects in Pakistan, particularly in Balochistan. Six Chinese engineers working on a dam project were killed in March in the country’s northwest. Separatist militants have also targeted Balochistan’s Gwadar port, which is run by China.

Chinese targets have previously come under attack by several Baloch militant groups, who say they have been fighting for decades for a larger share in the regional wealth of mines and minerals denied by the central government. The state denies exploiting Balochistan.