The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a tangible mega project that will “undertake the great mission of prompting the economic takeoff and even the rise of Pakistan”, professor of international relations at Renmin University of China Wang Yiwei Thursday said.
One of the spillover effects will be that cooperation in the South Asia region will be strengthened in three areas: development, security and governance. “Its influence on global governance to reinforce pragmatic cooperation between China and Pakistan will help Pakistan to break the vicious circle of long-term poverty, violence and terrorist attacks,” he commented.
Liu Ying, a research fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University, opined infrastructure construction for the corridor will develop Pakistan’s economy, and it will not only benefit China and Pakistan but all countries along the route.
“The corridor will help cut the journey time for freight between Gwadar Port, West China and the Central Asian regions by 60 to 70 percent,” he said.
The CPEC has become a “flagship” of the China-led Belt and Road Initiative, according to Mushahid Hussain Sayed, a senator and chairman of the parliamentary committee on the corridor.
He said the Belt and Road Initiative – an umbrella term for the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road – will result in land and sea routes that will connect countries in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe.
“Today, the corridor is a factor of national unity in the progress and prosperity of the people of Pakistan and the provinces of Pakistan, particularly the less-developed regions, in the quest to build a better and more prosperous future,” he said.
He recalled the reply he gave to a journalist’s question during an address at Harvard University in March about the challenges facing the corridor.
According to a report by international rating agency Moody’s, the corridor will boost economic activity in Pakistan, whose growth rate is expected to be 4.9 per cent this year.
