CPEC Significantly Improved Pakistan's Infrastructure, Power Sector

BEIJING, May 8 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 8th May, 2021 ) :The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has showed maturity and stability of already deep high level friendship between Pakistan and China and since its launch, the flagship project has significantly improved Pakistan's infrastructure and power sector.

"Along with these developments, human interaction between Pakistanis and Chinese has also increased, which is proving to be very helpful for people to understand each other from many angles beyond traditional ways," Haroon Sharif, former Chairman BOI told China Economic Net (CEN) in an interview.

He said, the real people's partnership would take place when they understand each other's language and culture and added, as Chinese universities are already attracting Pakistani students, two- or four-years' studying made them have much deeper understanding of Chinese culture and people.

He advised to scale up knowledge corridor by opening joint universities. Chinese faculty should come to Pakistan. By this way, the interaction of people will increase.

"In order to convert this interaction into knowledge, we have to make some investments in media, education and culture, like television stations and joint collaboration in films," he added.

Haroon Sharif observed that the CPEC is a game changer as it has brought employment, prosperity and socio-economic development to the country, even to the region.

CPEC is also appealing to foreign investors as the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan has been briefing what is happening at Gwadar port, the progress of various projects. Foreign investors from Saudi Arabia and Qatar were watching CPEC closely, he added.

Agriculture would be a priority for their investment, according to Haroon Sharif, as Pakistan is an agricultural country with big potential and these countries have to import all the foodstuffs from abroad.

He said, following agriculture, comes the logistics sector. As CPEC is such a big corridor that all kind of services would be needed. When the ports are built, storage is needed. When trades are done, transport is needed. The investors have a special interest in the trade logistics.

He pointed out that Pakistan would have an advantage as a connecting hub. When this connectivity is completed, foreigner investors would get access to the Pakistani market with more than 200 million people. In the future, Pakistan's connectivity toward West Asia and Central Asia will also be increased.

For better facilitating investors, he said these Special Economic Zones (SEZs) under CPEC should look like a ship or a vessel in which an investor could get all the things needed. These included electricity, water, gas, regulation and banking.

Stressing for setting up a fund for SMEs, he said, "Pakistan and China shall set up a fund for the small and medium enterprises that will make equity investments and provide technical assistance to them, not lend loans.

It must do partnerships, teach them how to do business and make it part of a value chain of China and Pakistan." Haroon Sharif said China's model of development was very fascinating and he thought that the reason why China has developed so fast lied in its reform and opening-up policy.

Besides the opening-up, China made many reforms which Pakistan also needed to learn from it, he added.