Collardeperlaschino - China–Pakistan Economic Corridor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The China-PakistanEconomic corridor is an under-construction development program to connect Gwadar Port in southern Pakistan to China’s northwestern autonomous region of Xinjiang via highways, railways[1] and pipelines to transport oil and gas. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang was among the first advocates of the project; since then Chinese President Xi Jinping, former Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif have become strong supporters of the project.[2] When the corridor is constructed it will serve as a primary gateway for trade between China and the Middle East and Africa. In particular oil from the Middle East could be offloaded at Gwadar, which is located just outside the mouth of the Persian Gulf, and transported to China through the Baluchistan province in Pakistan. Such a link would vastly cut the 12,000-kilometre route that Mideast oil supplies must now take to reach Chinese ports.[3]
The project received a major boost when control of Gwadar was transferred to China’s state-owned China Overseas Ports Holding in February 2013. Built by Chinese workers and opened in 2007, Gwadar is undergoing a major expansion to turn it into a full-fledged deep-water commercial port. Pakistan and China have signed agreements for constructing an international airport at Gwadar, upgrading a section of the 1,300-kilometre Karakorum Highway connecting to Islamabad and laying a fibre-optic cable from the Chinese border to the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi.[4][5] With the development of the corridor Central Asia, traditionally an economically closed region owing to its geography and lack of infrastructure, will have greater access to the sea and to the global trade network.[6] The Pak-China Economic Corridor Secretariat was inaugurated in Islamabad on August 27, 2013.[7]
On November 2014, Chinese government announced that it will finance Chinese companies to build $45.6 billion worth of energy and infrastructure projects in Pakistan as part of CPEC. Documents quoted by Reuters show that China has promised to invest around $33.8 billion in various energy projects and $11.8 billion in infrastructure projects which will be completed by 2017 at most. The deal includes $622 million for Gwadar port, According to Reuters, under the CPEC agreement, $15.5 billion worth of coal, wind, solar and hydro energy projects will add 10,400 megawatts of energy to the national grid of Pakistan.[8][9]
