Descriptive Analyses of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor: Pakistan’s Perspective

Abstract

The 21st century has emerged as the decade of global and regional strategic partnerships and
China -Pakistan Economic Corridor cooperation is a much talked partnership with strategic
dimensions for both partners. The paper aims at exploring the salient projects associated with the
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) launched with an estimated amount of investment
$46 billion in July 2013, for a timeframe from 2014 to 2030. The research is descriptive in nature
and data is extracted from published sources of governments and research studies. CPEC
connects West Asia and Central Asia throughGwadarport of Pakistan with Kashgardry port of
China considering hub of China trade for South Western China. The research found that the
project is multi-phased including; energy generation and development of
communicationinfrastructure in phase one, establishment of economic zones and industries along
the routes and development ofGwadar free trade zone and promotion of industrial cooperation
amongst the members’ counties.CPEC invested over $ 33.79 billion in energy generation to the
tune of 17045MW electricity in Pakistan; $ 9.790 Billion on communication infrastructure and
around 10$ for the development of Gwadar port, along with free trade zone. Owning to the
characteristics of CPEC development projects, it is recommended that Pakistan need to provide a
secure environment across the country. Further, recommend focusing on institutional capacity
building along with strategic initiatives for sustainable national development.The paper serves as
a rejoinder to enhance understanding of the CPEC and its strategic dimensions for China-Pakistan
long term relationship and emerging alignment of Indo-US in this regard.