CPEC essence of bilateral relations between China and Pakistan, says Chinese envoy

KARACHI: Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Yu Jing on Friday said that only the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) agreement was not going to guarantee the development of the whole economy of Pakistan, but was a small part of it.

“China is doing huge investments in Pakistan on a partnership basis. We are helping in various sectors, including education, technical education, agriculture, social development, technology transfer etc,” he said. 

Yu Jing was speaking at a dialogue on CPEC hosted by the Karachi Council on Foreign Relations. KCFR Chairman Ikram Sehgal and Secretary General Commodore (retd) Sadeed A Malik also spoke on the occasion.

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Ying stated that CPEC was the essence of bilateral long-term relations between the two countries, which would help Pakistan develop critical infrastructure and was not a means "to colonise the country." 

Strongly rejecting propaganda, the ambassador said that China had no military or strategic designs in Pakistan viz-a-viz CPEC, as propagated by the western media. Yu Jing said the western media always painted a negative narrative against China that was baseless and wrong.

“CPEC will not only connect China with Gwadar, but it will also lead to Kandahar, Afghanistan, Central Asia and Russia as well. Gwadar is an emerging port of Pakistan, which is a long awaited dream of Pakistanis and their government,” he noted. 

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“We are waiting for the Free Zone policy of Pakistan government, after which we will launch 19 projects in Gwadar alone. China is spending $40 million annually to keep Gwadar port functional, as it is now started commercial operations as well," Ying informed the audience. 

"We send a commercial vessel every week to Gwadar port. In next phase of second Free Trade Agreement, we will establish manufacturing units of agriculture, seafood and other industries, which will also provide huge employment to people,” the ambassador stressed. 

Yu Jing noted that the biggest issues of Gwadar were electricity and fresh water. "China will install a power plant of 300 megawatt, while we will also install a desalination plant with capacity of 5000 tons," he said. 

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