The federal government on Thursday cleared six development schemes costing Rs130 billion including two strategically important projects under the Pakistan-China Economic Corridor, marking the beginning of a process that will transform the country into a transit hub for the second largest economy of the world.
The projects were cleared in a meeting of the Central Development Working Party (CDWP) – the body that has powers to approve up to Rs3 billion worth of projects and recommends those costing more to the Executive Committee of National Economic Council (Ecnec). After CDWP’s green signal, Ecnec will give final approval.
Minister of Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal chaired the CDWP meeting. The six projects recommended to Ecnec are related to transport and communications and the Higher Education Commission.
One of the main projects is acquisition of land for the Gwadar free trade zone at a cost of Rs6.3 billion. This is part of the Pakistan-China Economic Corridor.
For the establishment of the free trade zone, it is a contractual obligation to provide 2,281 acres of land, according to a handout issued by the Ministry of Planning and Development.
Under the corridor, China will secure energy supplies through the Gwadar Port for its northwestern provinces aimed at reducing cost of doing business in addition to securing safer routes for supplies from Central Asia and Africa.
Pakistan is also expected to get benefits from the initiative, as thousands of jobs will be created along the transit route, stretching over 2,000 km of roads. The national development agenda of the government would make Pakistan a fast-growing economy in Asia, said the planning minister.
The CDWP recommended a project for acquiring land for 1,152km Karachi-Lahore Motorway at a rationalised cost of Rs55.5 billion against the original price of Rs60.5 billion. The project is also part of the economic corridor.
The CDWP constituted a committee to further review the possibility of rationalising the cost.
Similarly, construction of Karachi-Lahore Motorway was approved in principle. But the CDWP constituted a committee, to be chaired by Planning Secretary Hasan Nawaz Tarar, to rationalise the project cost.
Iqbal advised sponsoring ministries to ensure due diligence in planning these mega projects to avoid frequent changes at the implementation stage. He also directed that project formulation should be based on technical feasibility studies.
The CDWP also cleared 59km Hassanabdal-Havelian Expressway at a cost of Rs31 billion. The Asian Development Bank will provide 85% of the cost as loan.
The committee cleared another road project – Kalat-Quetta-Chaman – for which the United States will provide a grant of $90 million. Under this project, a 250km road will be widened and improved. This project will help in opening up the area and provide road facilities of international standard to the users.
The CDWP also recommended the prime minister’s programme for distributing laptops amongst young and bright students studying in any public sector higher education institute across the country on purely merit basis. The scheme is one of the initiatives launched under the Prime Minister’s Youth Scheme for 2013-14.
This year, 100,000 laptops with an approximate cost of Rs37,500 per unit have been purchased off-the-shelf in accordance with the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority rules and will be distributed in the near future amongst the students as per defined criteria of the scheme, said the planning ministry.
It added from next year tenders for the supply of laptops would have a specific requirement of establishing the assembly line by the supplier for local manufacturing of laptops. The government will distribute 500,000 laptops in five years.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 6th, 2014.
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COMMENTS (33)
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china will come to the aid of pakistan inshallah .and the recent attack on karachi airport was an example of how much the world especially india fears this cooperation .However they will never be able to stop this foreign investment from flowing to pakistan!
@Bakhtiyar Ghazi Khan:
So were Bangladeshis or are you saying they are not Muslims?
@fahim: Chinese are smart. They know what to take and how to avoid the rest.do not get excited.
@Khan: Seems India and Pakistan are not in the same league and India is way way bigger with more resources and growth prospects and you do not have to be proving it all the time that you are better than India. Pathetic thinking. You choose the paths that best fits each country.
So exactly why are Indians thinking we are actually competing them?
@antanu stop pretending to be indian and write your opinion as your own nationality will you? India is/was never ussr state because we were member of non aligned group and never fought their wars nor we gave someone hand to rule our country or give our resources to them at cheap rate as client state. We had common strategic interests then vis via america and acted on it. And that was decades and decades back now the cold wars over we don't even share the Cold War mentality towards USA and have business dealing and friendship will all countries except yours. But your country is stuck in that era of handing over land,ports,roadways,industries at low rates etc to a single country. We are more of portfolio management all eggs in different basket and minimise risks and dependency on one. While you are all eggs in same china basket so "the client state" tag as pointed by some of your own countrymen.
@Who Flung Dung : NOT ME! . Cheers
@Rudra: Trust me your size is your biggest enemy right now. How will you feed 1.5 billion people in future when you run out of energy resources in future?
@INDIAN: Wake up you really need a dose of uranium.
@unbelievable: why not apply for appointment to the post of advisor in china....
@Woo Flung Dung: Hilarious!
Great, happy that Pakistan gets development
@kaka what's to wake up? You progress kudos to you. But you can't equate us in terms of economy no matter if at you progress. Because india's size,economy, consumption are many times larger, basic common sense. it's like comparing cherries with water melons. @khan so you want to progress , just to show off Indians not for you Or your peoples progress? what logic and narrow mindedness. Btw I am touched you value and give us so much importance in every discussion to scale our level. Btw have you forgot the chabbar port we have in Iran that gives us direct access to Middle East Central Asia not via hanging on someone else's back? Or endless coastline access we have to the world from east to west india's coastline? Or under water gas pipelines we have with oman-iran-india through deep sea? Progress dude, but with a motto to see your country scale high for your own people not with a attitude to crush or demean other countries.
If Indians here seem upset by this development, I am sure its in the best interest of Pakistan.
For the one who are saying Baloch will kick out Pakistan, obviously you have never been to Balochistan. Baloch are strict Muslims like Pukhtoons and extremely devoted to Pakistan.
Why would China want to transport goods long distance using trucks via Pakistan only to put them on ships in Pakistan to send to the ultimate buyer? Cost more, inconvenient and subject to the infamous Pakistani theft/tax. China will continue to use their own railways and shipyards. Trying to resurrect the Silk road to compete against airplanes, railroads and modern shipping seems like a desperate and unwise plan.
Anything for Thakot Raikot Road... the longest off road patch of KKH...
@ Indian plz wake up
All sounds good, but problem is Chinese stuff doesn't works well, and we as a nation dont manage our assets properly leading to short service lives and recurring losses. It is probably wrong to criticize their engineering work when we cant do the same, but seriously first two of the five train engines recently received failed mid-journey causing delays and passenger agitation, also technical faults in dam and delays in project completion have cost us huge losses. To this date the Gomal Zam dam could not be brought in service because of design flaw. Awarding contracts and signing deals is the first step in solving the problem, second part is actually delivering the asset to nation on which we have spent our precious tax money. If the government and relevant departments are not going to follow up on these projects it only directs us to conclude that by making headlines they are widening their voter base, by awarding projects to incompetent firms on shady feasibility reports (for example Bhasha Dam: http://www.internationalrivers.org/campaigns/diamer-bhasha-dam ) office bearers are enjoying hefty kick-backs, at the expense of taxpayers money.
China is a real good friend of Pakistan.
very good
Encouraging moves. Seems some one is thinking strategically to imporve the economic conditions of Pakistan. Alas same thinking prevailed to curb the terrorism and to ensure fair and just treatment with all Pakistanis.
@fahim and @last word, so what does you guys want? we shouldn't do projects with china?
kisi kay sath tu business kerna hai na? is there anyone else willing to this much investments?
infrastructure is always good! Dubai is purely a transit economy even after having a less strategic position then us
pakistan should stop dreaming of catching up to India with chinese aid. Pakistan can never become india's equal. It is only a matter of time before the baloch kick out pakistan and their chinese masters from their independent homeland.
Pakistan is slowly but surely becoming the Province of China.
why dont we declare this country as a state of china... and merge with them. Atleast it will be better than being in a third grade client state, now that we are selling our national assets to the chinese without tenders at throwaway prices.. and china literally owns and controls everything here.
It seems that a lot of important infrastructure projects are being launched. This explains the upbeat analysis of international market managers on the Pakistani economy.
very goo news, we china pakistan best friends. pakistan importan friend of china like north korea. i like pakistan food and beatiful woman.
Pakistan-China Economic Corridor Very good move by Govt, this project will make Pak-China friendship more strong, and will help Pakistan economy to be more stable and strong.. Thanks China...
Good for Pakistan but if we could just spend fraction of this amount on healthcare and education then we'll have a future to look forward to, all we need is setting up of basic building blocks.
Development, development and only development!!! Loving it! Pakistan on the right track!
This is the type of strategic cooperations we needs to show those Indian dudes. Go Pakistan! I only request the Government to ensure that minesweeper is installed on all those laptops so that our childrens' military aspect of brains may undergo serious development.