APC consensus: Parties settle on corridor route

Parliamentary leaders give go-ahead after PM Nawaz adopts flexibility, agrees on western corridor.

ISLAMABAD:

After weeks of haggling and sloganeering, all political parties reached a consensus on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) on Thursday once the government offered to first construct the western route of the multibillion infrastructure project.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif secured wide endorsement from political groupings at Thursday’s All Parties Conference (APC) held at the PM House. But not before showing flexibility on his earlier stance and giving in to the demands of other parties about the economic corridor. This flexibility resulted in the announcement of priority development of the western corridor.



Three CPEC routes – western, central and eastern alignments – were under consideration. Although the government insisted on building the eastern alignment in the first phase, protests by different political parties forced it to announce development of all three routes simultaneously.

The western route starts from Gwadar and passes through Turbat, Panjgur, Nag, Basima, Sorab, Qalat, Quetta, Qilla Saifullah and Zhob in Balochistan to reach Dera Ismail Khan in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and then heading to Hassan Abdal before reaching Islamabad.

Working groups

PM Nawaz said a parliamentary committee would be set up for overseeing the CPEC projects and to ensure all reservations were addressed.

The committee is likely to be notified by the National Assembly speaker during the joint session scheduled for June 4 which will also include the president’s annual address. The annual budget is expected on June 5.

He also announced forming a joint working group to address the reservations of the provinces.



The working group will operate as a task force comprising representatives of all provinces and China also to locate suitable places for setting up the proposed industrial zones along with the CPEC route.

While addressing the APC, the premier thanked the political leadership of the country for standing united on the important national issue and for their consensual decision. He said the CPEC would help bring equitable development across the country.

Earlier, Planning and Development Minister Ahsan Iqbal updated the participants about the economic corridor and debunked some of the misconceptions surrounding the project.

He informed the parliamentary leaders that the CPEC was not confined to a single physical route and rather an entire system of roads, airports, ports, and energy and development projects. In July, Iqbal said, the governments of Pakistan and Chinese would sit together to decide the locations of the proposed industrial zones.

Talking to the media after the meeting, Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s Farooq Sattar said the political parties had not reached consensus on the entire project but had agreed rather on building the western route of the CPEC.

PM’s Special Assistant Khawaja Zaheer said the Frontier Works Organisation was already working on the construction and development of various roads along the three routes of the CPEC. Several roads are being upgraded to connect Gwadar to Kashgar, he said.

Qaumi Watan Party head Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao said the Lahore-Karachi Motorway would fulfil the needs of the other routes under CPEC. All link routes will be completed in December 2016.

Awami National Party’s Asfandyar Wali, a vocal critic of the earlier CPEC route, expressed joy at the development after the meeting. He said the PM showed his generosity while giving priority to the western route. “No political party has concern over the CPEC now,” he claimed.

Sources told The Express Tribune that Pakistan People Party Co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari had played a vital role in bringing the estranged political parties on the same page. They said that Chinese officials approached various political parties secretly and convinced them to develop consensus on CPEC, as China was committed to start working on the projects.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 29^th, 2015.