Pakistan has decided to review a complete set of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects, costing US$64 billion.
The decision was taken in the third meeting of the federal cabinet which discussed the 100-day plan of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government.
The moot formed a number of task forces for achieving targets on various commitments that the party made before the July 25 elections in the country. Among them is a committee which has been assigned with the task of reviewing CPEC projects.
This committee is headed by Minister for Planning Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar and Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed is its member.
As per decision, the committee would present a complete review of CPEC projects to the prime minister. But still many doubt the review is a serious effort and is aimed at making it useful for Pakistan. Would it be presented in the parliament? No one knows for sure.
Independent economists and development experts have long been demanding that all agreements for CPEC projects should be made public and be presented before the parliament.
The atmosphere of secrecy has created doubts in Pakistan while many foreign experts claim CPEC loans are doomed to bring difficulties for cash-strapped Pakistan in near future.
During Nawaz Sharif government, numerous Pakistani newspapers printed a number of stories which claim the interests of Pakistan have been compromised in the agreements.
PTI leader Imran Khan has been promising to make parliament stronger and now it is demanded that all agreement signed with Chinese should be made public and presented in the parliament.
Leaders of Pakistan’s local trade and industry have concerns that the CPEC initiative would eventually affect ingenious industrial and business base and turn Pakistan into a consumer society.
Over US$28 billion CPEC projects including US$22 billion energy schemes are currently in progress while about $46 billion projects are in the pipeline.
Few days after the cabinet huddle, Minister for Planning, Development, and Reform, Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar moved on Special Economic Zones (SEZs) saying the development of the SEZs was the priority of the new government to ensure the creation of new jobs, achieve high economic growth and encourage exports.
He presided over a meeting attended by Secretary Ministry of Planning, Shoaib Ahmad Siddiqui, Project Director CPEC, Hassan Daud, officials from the Board of Investment, Ministry of Commerce and Industries.
Reviewing progress on SEZs, the minister instructed to fast-track the processes and to enhance coordination amongst the line ministries to ensure early implementation of this important sector of CPEC.
The minister stated that CPEC SEZs offers huge potential to create jobs and commitment of the government to the people as per the vision of the prime minister.
He tasked all stakeholders to complete all processes to ensure groundbreaking of the prioritized SEZs in the coming three months.
This meeting and the decisions show how informed is Bakhtiar of the concerns of trade and business community on SEZs or he has just avoided to take them seriously. These zones were opposed by business chambers of Punjab and they had written to his predecessor. They feared they might come on the road if such project was realized.
The PTI government should have taken the concerned people on board before moving on CPEC’s those projects which are detrimental to the local industry.
Instead, the minister instructed to work for the development of SEZ in Federal Capital Territory that may host IT, telecom and services sector.
In a separate meeting, he also reviewed progress on CPEC energy projects.
Bakhtiar said under the directives of the Prime Minister, the government intends to encourage projects based on indigenous sources of energy including Thar Coal, hydel and renewable.
He said that the choice of local energy sources would also reduce our import bill. He also instructed the concerned officials to explore opportunities of future power projects in these sectors to be included in CPEC energy portfolio.
