Ministries vow to boost CPEC for country’s progress

CPEC Authority chief says authorities satisfied with projects

China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) Authority Chairman Lt Gen (retd) Asim Saleem Bajwa on Thursday said that all ministries have vowed to accord priority to procedural formalities and incentive packages to make CPEC a success.

In a series of tweets, the CPEC Authority chairman shared the bits of his briefing to the Cabinet Committee on CPEC presided over by Planning Minister Asad Umar.

“All ministries were forthcoming & vowed to accord priority to procedural formalities & incentive packages to make CPEC a success. As per PM [Imran Khan]’s vision, CPEC dividends will be taken to every Pakistani - the participants reiterated.”

 Bajwa, who is also the special assistant to the PM on information and broadcasting, has been sharing the details of the projects being followed under the corridor project on the microblogging site and hailed CPEC as vital for the country’s economy.

In another tweet, he said the meeting was attended by 10 federal ministers and secretaries. The forum showed full satisfaction on the pace of progress, Bajwa said, adding that they reaffirmed their full commitment towards supporting the corridor project from their ministries to accelerate further.

Meanwhile, the committee chairman said that with the progress the emphasis on industrial cooperation would increase. In addition, he added the two areas of emphasis and priority in the next phase would be agriculture and science and technology.

“For both these areas new joint working groups have been established under the CPEC framework,” Umar said in a series of tweets.

The committee reviewed the progress of CPEC projects during 2019-20. In the power sector, two projects with a capacity of 1,980MW were commissioned, it was told.

“Groundbreaking of one project [is] done. Financial close of 2 projects achieved and concession agreement of 2 hydel projects with [a] capacity of 1,800 MW signed,” Umar said.

In industrial cooperation, the minister said the first CPEC special economic zone groundbreaking in Faisalabad took place in January and significant progress made in special economic zones in Dhabeji, Sindh and Rashakai, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

According to the minister, significant progress also achieved in the development of Gwadar infrastructure that was the linchpin of CPEC. Such development included groundbreaking of Pak-China hospital and a technical and vocational centre, he said, adding that Phase 1 of [a] project to supply 5 MGD water from Saur dam to Gwadar city completed.