China To Extend Financial Support To Three Road Projects

(@FahadShabbir)

China to extend financial support to three road projects

ISLAMABAD, Jan 3 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 03rd Jan, 2017 ) - China will provide about US$1 billion in soft loans for three new road projects along the western route of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), connecting the "shortest route from Gwadar to China", China Daily, Hong Kong reported while qouting a senior Pakistani official.

Chief Minister Sindh Syed Murad Ali Shah, said China will invest in new roads and factories to help smaller Pakistani provinces integrate into the project. The eastern and western routes of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor "should operate like two legs of a body," Shah said.

However, more investment and opportunities have gone into the eastern route, where most of the country's industrial and financial sectors are located, he said. "The economically smaller provinces feel deprived and left out of the project," he said.

"CPEC is a national project, after all, and should improve the economy throughout the country." Shah was in Beijing for the sixth China-Pakistan Joint Cooperation Committee meeting held on Thursday in Beijing.

It was the first time that the chief ministers from all of Pakistan's provinces were invited to discuss industrial cooperation, he said. Tang Mengsheng, Director of the Pakistan Studies Center of Peking University, also said China and Pakistan both need a top-level government body to run the CPEC and "facilitate interconnectivity in policy, infrastructure, trade, Currency and people".

Sun Shihai, Director of the Chinese Association for South Asian Studies, said that developing the western route not only will help local economies flourish, but also will ensure a robust and convenient trade network as the bedrock of CPEC's success.