- The right LTP
Any plan of the size, scope and novel nature of China’s ambitious One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative is bound to encounter headwinds now and then, especially in the early stages. But when problems arise because of lack of transparency, unresolved issues between stakeholders, etc, there is an urgent need on the part of the principal parties to go right back to the drawing board and iron out all possible complications before the program takes off with full force. CPEC might be just one part of OBOR, but it is definitely the most important one. And news reports following the marathon 7th ministerial level Joint Cooperation Committee (JCC) meeting show, surprisingly, that some of the core problems continue to linger.
High on that list is lack of transparency. Why, for example, did Ahsan Iqbal contradict himself by advocating making the Long Term Plan (LTP) public then not commit on when? And why are provinces still complaining that the LTP was kept ‘hidden’ from them till ‘a later stage’? Also, there is still a visible lack of understanding among provinces and, worryingly, Balochistan — supposedly the biggest beneficiary of the CPEC revolution — submitted no plans for SEZs. It seems the minister for planning and development, and the focal person for CPEC, went into the crucial meeting without doing his homework.
Then there’s the uproar in KP. Chief Minister Khattak drew the line between loans and grants, and reversed the Chinese plans to establish the KP SEZ at Hattar instead of Rashakai. And it’s not as if the Chinese are completely happy. Finally they have spoken out about the political instability here that seems to worsen by the day. They have seen how this uncertainty wrecked the local capital market and sparked an investor exodus from the bourse. If unchecked it will certainly spread to the real economy; and they would not like to see their investment going waste because we can’t keep our house in order. Pakistan was also taken off guard by the proposal to use Chinese currency. But once the state bank returns with its analysis, there might be more surprises awaiting the Pakistani government, which will still have to make payments in US dollars. If anything, the JCC shed timely light on areas that still need a lot of work before going all in into the implantation phase.