Story & photos by Recto Mercene
PAKISTAN and China, physically cut off from each other by the forbidding Karakoram mountain range, had to engage in commerce and trade all these years via the South China Sea, a distance spanning 20,000 kilometers.
The route is a long-established, well-mapped trade path between China and the Arabian Peninsula, employed since at least the Han dynasty. This same was taken by the greatest navigator of its time, Zheng He, whose seven voyages took him from Nanjing, Fuzhou, Hainan, Vietnam, Malacca Strait and Chittagong (present-day Bangladesh), down to the Bay of Bengal and to Sri Lanka, and upward toward Hormuz in the Persian Gulf or Africa.
On the other hand, the Karakoram reaches 8,611 meters (or 28,251 feet), just 237 meters (or 777 feet) shy of Mount Everest, at 8,848 meters (29,028 feet). It spans the borders of Pakistan, India and China, with the northwest extremity of the range extending to Afghanistan and Tajikistan.
However, thanks to the $46-billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), this forbidding barrier and icy expanse would be reduced to only 2,000 kilometers, Pakistan Ambassador to the Philippines Safdar Hayat said.
“This flagship project of China would offer an enormous advantage for both of our countries, since they would be able to sell practically everything to us, while we would be able to export to them textile and other [items],” Hayat declared during the celebration of the Pakistan National Day on March 23 at his residence in South Forbes Park, Dasmariñas, Makati City.
Among the guests were Chinese Ambassador Zhao Jianhua, of Foreign Assistant Secretary Celia Anna Feria, Dean of the Diplomatic Corps Giuseppe Pinto, BusinessMirror Publisher T. Anthony C. Cabangon, former senator and journalist Francisco Tatad and former Instituto Cervantes Director Jose R. Rodriguez.
Megainfrastructure project
HAYAT said this ambitious project, which started in 2016, would include various infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, a power project, as well as the establishment of economic zones.
“Consequently, Pakistan’s economy is on the rise, and is poised to become a regional economic power. The CPEC has the potential to change the fate of the region in terms of socioeconomic development,” Hayat added.
“The megaproject, once completed, will usher in prosperity and progress, not only in Pakistan but also in the whole region,” the ambassador declared.
In his welcome speech, Hayat said Pakistan accords great importance to its relations with the Philippines. Bilateral ties between the two countries date back to 1949. The partnership has flourished in diverse fields translating into a reservoir of goodwill in both the public and the private sectors.
On November 13, 2016, the CPEC became partly operational when Chinese cargo was transported overland to Gwadar Port for onward maritime shipment to Africa and West Asia.
Hayat said the most important part of this project is China’s investment in Gwadar Port, a warm-water, deep-sea facility on the Arabian Sea in Gwadar, Balochistan. The port is considered to be a crucial link between the ambitious One Belt, One Road and Maritime Silk Road projects.
Gwadar’s potential to be a deep-water sea port would be an advantage to China, which seeks to expand its blue-water Navy, which now includes the South China Sea.
Plans for construction of the port started in 2007, when former President Parvez Musharraf inaugurated it at the cost of $248 million.
In 2015 it was announced that the city and port would be further developed under the CPEC project at a cost of $1.62 billion, to link northern Pakistan and western China to the deep-water seaport. The port will also be the site of a floating liquefied natural-gas facility that will be built as part of the larger $2.5-billion Gwadar-Nawabshah segment of the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project, Hayat said.
Construction began in June 2016 on the Gwadar Special Economic Zone, which is being built on a 2,292-acre site adjacent to Gwadar’s port. In late-2015 it was officially leased to China for 43 years, until 2059.
Road to progress
On the other hand, Hayat said the CPEC would soon be a vast network of highways and railways, spanning the length and breadth of Pakistan, and all the way to Gwadar and Karachi with the Chinese region of Xinjiang.
These infrastructure projects are worth approximately $11 billion, and will be financed by subsidized concessionary loans that will be dispersed by the Exim Bank of China, China Development Bank, and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.
As part of the broad package of infrastructure projects under the CPEC, a 1,100-kilometer-long highway will be constructed between the cities of Karachi and Lahore, while the Karakoram Highway between Rawalpindi and the Chinese border will be completely reconstructed and overhauled.
The Karachi-Peshawar main railway line will also be upgraded to allow for train travel at up to 160 km per hour by December 2019. Pakistan’s railway network will also be extended to eventually connect to China’s Southern Xinjiang Railway in Kashgar.
The CPEC’s potential impact on Pakistan has been likened to that of the Marshall Plan undertaken by the United States in postwar Europe, according to Wikipedia.
Pakistani officials predict that the CPEC will result in the creation of more than 2.3 million jobs between 2015 and 2030, and add 2 to 2.5 percentage points to the country’s annual economic growth.
Once all the planned projects are implemented, the estimated value of those projects would be equal to all foreign direct investments in Pakistan since 1970, and would be equivalent to 17 percent of Pakistan’s 2015 GDP.
PHL-Pakistan ties
ON the side, Hayat said the most common trait that binds Pakistanis and Filipinos is the warmth and hospitality toward others. “Since my arrival in this beautiful country, I have personally experienced this, and I am sure my Filipino brothers and sisters must have experienced the same during their visit to [my country].”
He said the Philippines forms an important component of their “Vision East Asia Policy”, aimed at enhancing relations with the whole region in diverse fields.
“Prospects are bright, and I am hopeful that in the coming months we will witness increased exchanges between the two countries at different levels,” Hayat declared.
He said Pakistan has a sizable population in the Philippines, “who are in many ways contributing toward the overall progress and prosperity of not only Pakistan but also of the Philippines. The same applies to the Filipinos in Pakistan.”
“In fact, there are more Filipinos in Pakistan than Pakistanis in the Philippines,” he revealed.
Image credits: Recto Mercene
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