ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: The Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Sun Weidong on Monday said that the multi-billion dollars China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project would give more benefit to Pakistan than China.
While addressing the Inaugural Ceremony of CPEC Centre of Excellence in Islamabad along with the Minister for Planning, Development and Reforms Ahsan Iqbal to promote research and knowledge based policy making in Pakistan, the Chinese envoy said that CPEC had become symbol of Pakistan-China long living friendship.
The envoy said that the CPEC projects would further mobilize Pakistan potential. He said that 18 early harvest projects worth $18.5 billion of CPEC were now under construction and they would be completed by next year
The Chinese ambassador said that in recent years, Pakistan economy had made tremendous progress and now the international credit rating agencies were rating Pakistan’s economy as good. He said that in next five years, Pakistan’s energy demand would surpass 33000 MW and CPEC energy projects of over 11000 MW would help meet the energy gap.
Sun Weidong said that CPEC was the major and leading project of China’s one belt one road vision.
In his remarks, the federal minister hoped that researchers at the CPEC Centre of Excellence would guide the policy makers and businessmen to get maximum benefits from CPEC and they would also help keeping the mega project in the right direction.
The minister urged the researchers to build linkages with international scholars and produce cutting-edge research for the country and region.
Ahsan Iqbal said that the CPEC had proved as a big bang for Pakistan economy as the economy had turned around from its very sluggish condition back in 2013 to an extremely hopeful and robust condition in just three years.
“In 2013, the world was terming the Pakistan economy as the worst and no investor was ready to invest even US $100 in Pakistan, then Pakistan’s time tested friend China moved forward and initiated the $46 billion mega project”, he added.
Rejecting the notion that the completion of CPEC projects would only benefit China, the minister said that a huge inflow of investment was pouring in to the Country which would help the local industry to flourish. He said that under CPEC early harvest projects, maximum energy projects would start generation in 2018 which would end load shedding in the Country.
The minister said that the Country’s road, infrastructure, transport system was also being improved thanks to CPEC which would help boosting internal and external connectivity of the Country.
