Islamabad, exploring CPEC’s Impact on Pakistan’s Economy – On June 4th. Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif is scheduled to visit China for five days. There, he will meet top leaders in Beijing at a time when Islamabad is seeking closer relations with the international community. The second biggest economy in the world, after touring Beijing, is Jiang. And Shenzhen – the southern city that has come to represent China’s rapid economic rise since the 1980s. Shenzhen was selected as the nation’s pioneer special economic zone under Deng Xiaoping.
CPEC’s Inception and Economic Challenges
In 2015, when Nawaz Sharif, the elder brother of Sharif, the thrice-prime minister of Pakistan, initiated CPEC with China, Pakistan was facing a major energy crisis, which adversely affected its industrial growth. Despite warnings of accumulating more debt, Islamabad leveraged CPEC to spearhead a series of energy projects.
CPEC’s Impacts and Unmet Expectations
Gwadar, a city on the bank of Balochistan territory in the southwest. It was picked as the site for a remote ocean port. This port is being alluded to as the “crown gem” of CPEC. And can transform it into a flourishing monetary focus. Additionally, there are plans for more than 2,000km of roadways to be built between Gwadar and Kashgar—an old city in China’s westernmost locale lining Afghanistan.
According to Ammar Malik, a senior researcher at the College of William and Mary’s AidData Research Center in the United States, while CPEC introduced infrastructure and energy projects, efforts were made to solidify Pakistan’s economy further. However, the translation of these benefits into economic production and growth has yet to materialize.
CPEC’s Progress and Hurdles
Government data on the CPEC website verifies this claim. The list of 95 projects in CPEC includes the largest investment of approximately $33 billion in the energy sector. Of the 21 power projects, 14 have already reached their combined capacity of 8,500 megawatts, while two are under construction and five are yet to commence. Similarly, out of 24 approved transportation projects, only six have been completed, and work is still ongoing on 13.
CPEC was supposed to include nine special economic zones (SEZs) to promote development through designated areas with relaxed trade laws. However, none have been fully operational yet, and only four are in progress.
Unmet Employment Expectations
Initially estimated to create over two million job opportunities for Pakistanis, CPEC has generated less than a quarter of that figure, according to government statistics, with fewer than 250,000 jobs created.
