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Friday April 19, 2024

China wants economic zones with all basic facilities

International Forum meets at Xinjiang today to specify goals of CPEC;Professor Ahsan Iqbal to lead Pak delegation for 2-day moot

By Mehtab Haider
August 12, 2015
Islamabad
China has asked Pakistan to establish industrial parks/special economic zones in those areas where provisions of all basic necessities are available such as steel, cement, automobiles, construction materials, household appliances, textile, light industries, garments and others.
Beijing has also conveyed to Islamabad on Monday that they will like to develop Gwadar area as first priority and they will start cooperation from the key projects such as Gwadar Port Free Zone and Haier-Ruba Industrial Park-II, an official presentation titled "CPEC-progress review" reveals, a copy of which is exclusively available with The News.
On China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) worth $44.413 billion, Pakistan's military and civilian political leaderships including ruling and opposition parties seem on one page, giving strength to this idea that projects under CPEC would be completed at all costs irrespective of any political divide that may exist in this country.
"At the preliminary stage, we could start from the key projects such as Gwadar Port Free Zone and Haier-Ruba Industrial Park-II," the Chinese side has set the tone for undertaking cooperation under much hyped cooperation between the two countries.
The Chinese side, on proposed industrial parks and special economic zones (SEZs) under CPEC, responded that there was need to conduct industrial and investment cooperation in such areas where provision of steel, cement, automobiles, construction materials, household appliances, textile, light industries, garments and others are available in rampant in order to meet requirements of mass scale industrialisation.
The Chinese further advised Pakistani side to give full play to the Secretariat or the working group on overall planning to explore cooperation on investment and industrial park at the current stage. Beijing viewed that the set-up of new working group could be taken into consideration in due time when the stage would be set for enhancing cooperation between the two sides.
Pakistani side decided to finalise industrial parks/SEZs in consultation with the provinces. The federal government had proposed 29 industrial parks and 21 special economic zones at different sites of the provinces but it would be finalised after taking the federating units into full confidence.
Meanwhile, the CPEC International Forum is being arranged today (Tuesday) at Karamay, Xinjiang China on August 11 and 12, 2015 and Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Reforms Professor Ehsan Iqbal is leading Pakistani delegation.
This conference will be participated by Pakistanis and Chinese authorities, think tanks, local and corporate delegates. It is the goal of the conference to specify principles and goals for implementation of CPEC. This conference is expected to lead towards establishment of permanent international forum.
Both the countries have also decided to initiate and promote China-Pakistan cooperation projects including people-to-people contacts and match- making amongst enterprises, the official presentation concluded.