CPEC to Add 2.5 Million Jobs, Boost Pak GDP Growth to 7.5%

[Riaz Haq]

China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is expected to add over 2 million direct and indirect jobs to Pakistan's economy and boost the country's GDP growth rate to 7.5%.

Jobs & Economic Growth in Pakistan: 

US-based consulting firm Deloitte and Touche estimates that China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects will create some 700,000 direct jobs during the
period 2015–2030 and raise its GDP growth rate to 7.5%,  adding 2.5 percentage points to the country's current GDP growth rate of 5%.

Pakistan Country Report in Shamghai Business Review Feb/March 2016

An additional 1.4 million indirect jobs will be added in supply-chain and service sectors to support the projects.  An example of indirect jobs is the massive expansion in Pakistan's cement production that will increase annual production capacity from 45 million tons to 65 million tons, according to a tweet by Bloomberg's Faseeh Mangi. Other indirect jobs will be in sectors ranging from personal services to housing and transportation.

CPEC Benefits for Pakistan & China: 

The CPEC will open doors to immense economic opportunities not only to Pakistan but will physically connect
China to its markets in Asia, Europe and beyond, according to the Deloitte report.

Almost 80% of the China’s oil is currently transported from the Middle East through the Strait of Malacca to Shanghai, (distance is almost 16,000 km and takes 2-3 months). With Gwadar port in Pakistan becoming
operational, the distance would reduce to less than 5,000 km. If all goes well and on schedule, of the 21
agreements on energy– including gas, coal and solar energy– 14 will be able to provide up to 10,400
megawatts (MW) of energy by March 2018. According to China Daily, these projects would provide up to
16,400 MW of energy altogether.

India's War on CPEC: 

The biggest challenge that CPEC faces today is India's well-orchestrated effort to sabotage it. Not only are Indian leaders on record as opposing CPEC, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his right-hand man Ajit Doval have unleashed a concerted effort to try to make it impossible.

Mr. Modi has openly expressed support for Baloch separatists and Ajit Doval has talked about Pakistan "losing Balochistan". A serving Indian Navy commander Kulbhushan Yadav has been arrested working undercover to wage covert war in Pakistan.

RAW Money Flow:

India has opened up a big money money spigot to use its agents to destabilize Pakistan. RK Yadav, an ex intelligence official of RAW, has in a TV interview (Siyasat Ki Baat with RK Yadav video 6:00 minutes), talked about RAW agents with "suitcases and cupboards full of money".

Ex RAW chief A.S. Dulat has said "money goes a long way" in intelligence operations.

Current National Security Advisor has talked about RAW recruiting terrorists with one-and-a-half times the money they are making from other sources.

RK Yadav has, in his book "Mission R&AW",  written about RAW money paid to late Pakistani politician Khan Abul Wali Khan in 1970s. He's also confirmed the existence of RAW-inspired 1960s Agartala Conspiracy that recruited Shaikh Mujib ur Rehman's Awami League to work for Indian intelligence.

More recently, London Police documents have revealed the testimony of MQM leaders Muhammad Anwar and Tariq Mir confirming that Altaf Husain received money from Indian intelligence.

Modi's Campaign to Isolate Pakistan:

While RAW is busy funding terror in Pakistan, the Indian Prime Minister Mr. Modi has launched a diplomatic offensive to have Pakistan declared a "state sponsor of terror". It's intended to deflect attention from Indian Army's brutality against innocent Kashmiris and to cover up his own proxy war of terror to sabotage CPEC in Pakistan.

Summary:

China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is a game-changer for Pakistan. It will build power plants and other infrastrastructure, boost Pakistan's GDP growth to 7.5% and add millions of new jobs to bring prosperity to Pakistan. Indian Prime Minister Modi is very unhappy about it and he has launched a multi-pronged concerted effort to sabotage CPEC by using covert wars and diplomatic offensives to hurt Pakistan. Can Pakistan defeat Indian plans and succeed in building a prosperous future? That is the big question. The answer depends on how well Pakistanis can unite to make it happen.

Here's a video by Gaurav Garg explaining why India wants to sabotage CPEC:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd_z9kf8AeE




Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Modi's Covert War in Pakistan

ADB Raises Pakistan GDP Growth Forecast

Gwadar as Hong Kong West

China-Pakistan Industrial Corridor

Indian Spy Kulbhushan Yadav's Confession

Ex Indian Spy Documents RAW Successes Against Pakistan

Saleem Safi of GeoTV on Gwadar

Pakistan FDI Soaring with Chinese Money for CPEC

[Riaz Haq]

World Bank projects 5.4% growth for #Pakistan in Fiscal 2017/18 July 2017-June 2018 #CPEC http://dailym.ai/2g0Yoql via @MailOnline

Pakistan's economy is set to grow by a robust 5.4 percent by 2018 as Chinese investment from a multi-billion dollar infrastructure project flows into the country, the World Bank predicted in a new report Thursday.

The cash-strapped country, for years plagued by a bloody homegrown Taliban insurgency, has been battling to get its shaky economy back on track and solve a chronic energy crisis that cripples its industry.

But now confidence in South Asia's second-biggest economy is growing, with security improving and the International Monetary Fund claiming in October that it has emerged from economic crisis after completing a bailout programme, though it still faces major challenges.

Pakistan recorded a 4.7 percent growth in gross domestic product (GDP) for the fiscal year ended June 2016, the highest rate in eight years, and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has set an ambitious target of 5.7 percent for the current year.

He is banking on structural reforms, the improved energy sector, taxation -- and China's ambitious $46 billion infrastructure project, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), linking its western province of Xinjiang to the Arabian Sea via Pakistan.

The World Bank report appeared optimistic about his plans, predicting even further growth in 2018.

"The pace of Pakistan's economic growth will accelerate to 5.4 percent in fiscal 2018," the Bank report said, observing that a moderate increase in investment mainly related to CPEC projects is expected to contribute to an acceleration of growth.

The Bank also noted Pakistan's efforts to address grinding poverty, including with revised ways to measure it.

"Based on the revised poverty line..., the percentage of people living below the poverty line decreased from 64.3 percent in 2002 to 29.5 percent in 2014," the report said.

Illango Patchamutu, World Bank country director for Pakistan, said the country needs to push forward with deeper structural reforms, and that the World Bank stood ready to support such an agenda.

[Riaz Haq]

#IMF: #Pakistan's Glass Half Full http://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2016/11/10/NA111016-Pakistan-Gl... …

Pakistan: Glass Half Full?
November 10, 2016

Successful program completion points to moment of opportunity
Significant challenges remain ahead
Close partnership to continue through policy dialogue and capacity building
Pakistan’s economy has stabilized from near-crisis circumstances and economic growth has gradually increased under the recently completed three-year economic reform program supported by a $6.15 billion arrangement under the IMF’s Extended Fund Facility.

In an interview, Harald Finger, IMF mission chief for Pakistan, talks about the state of the economy, the challenges ahead, and the next steps for Pakistan.

IMF News : On her recent visit, IMF chief Christine Lagarde spoke about a moment of opportunity for Pakistan. What has Pakistan accomplished over the course of the just completed program, and in what sense is there now such a window of opportunity?

Over the past three years, Pakistan has greatly strengthened the resilience of the economy and began making inroads towards addressing long-standing structural economic challenges. Not everything worked out fully as envisaged, of course, but it is important for us to recognize the program’s achievements. For instance, foreign exchange reserves have tripled, supported by foreign exchange purchases and external borrowing. 

The fiscal deficit declined by 2½ percent of GDP (not counting a large payment to clear energy sector arrears just before the program started). This was made possible by removing untargeted energy subsidies that disproportionately benefited the affluent, significantly raising tax revenue through removing exemptions and concessions, and taking a more systematic approach to bringing various economic groups into the tax net.

These measures allowed for an increase in investment spending and social protection. Enrollment in the Benazir Income Support Program has increased by 1½ million families, and stipends were raised by more than 50 percent.

In the energy sector, power outages have gradually decreased and financial performance is strengthening. As a result, accumulation of arrears in the sector has also declined significantly, thereby relieving pressures on the budget. Increased independence of the State Bank of Pakistan has improved the monetary policy framework. A new comprehensive strategy to improve the business climate has been adopted and started to be implemented.

While there have been important achievements, the outlook for economic growth has also turned broadly favorable. Exports and agricultural output have been declining amid a more challenging external environment and appreciating real exchange rate. These are important causes for concern. But private credit growth has been recovering, and strong machinery imports, cement consumption, and gradually rising core inflation also point to firm domestic demand. Moreover, large-scale investment under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor is beginning to be implemented. 

With the authorities’ accomplishments in strengthening the economy’s resilience and a broadly favorable outlook for growth, the IMF's Managing Director, Christine Lagarde, spoke of a moment of opportunity for Pakistan during her recent visit to Islamabad. She emphasized that now is the time for the country to continue its transition toward becoming a full-fledged emerging market by addressing the remaining challenges and implementing policies for higher and more inclusive growth.

[Riaz Haq]

Dangerous Doval Doctrine: #Balochistan vs #Kashmir | Frontline. #India #Pakistan #Modi #BJP http://www.frontline.in/the-nation/balochistan-vs-kashmir/article93... … 

The pursuit of a tit-for-tat diplomacy will not get India anywhere because Balochistan and Kashmir are not on a par, legally and politically. The time has come for India to drop the Baloch card and work for the settlement of Kashmir. By A.G. NOORANI
“PAKISTAN’s vulnerabilities are many times higher than us [sic]. Once they know that India has shifted gear from defensive mode to defensive-offence, they will find that it is unaffordable for them. You may do one Mumbai, you may lose Balochistan,” Ajit Doval, now Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s National Security Adviser, said at the 10th Nani Palkhivala Memorial Lecture at Sastra University, Thanjavur, on February 21, 2014. This was three months before he became NSA and the Manmohan Singh government was still in power.

The shock this Doval Doctrine of “defensive-offence” induced precluded any cool analysis of its implications (see the writer’s “The Doval doctrine”, Frontline, November 13, 2015). Doval was advocating a diplomacy of tit for tat with full knowledge of the perils it entailed, not least among them being the risk of matters getting out of hand in the retaliatory ladder of escalation. This becomes apparent when one moves from the doctrine to the specific, Balochistan.

Whoever perpetrated the Mumbai attacks committed a dastardly crime. But at no time did India ever allege that Pakistan’s top leaders were complicit in it. Is it not a wholly disproportionate retaliation to secure the detachment of one of Pakistan’s four provinces? Would its leaders, civil and military, sit back with folded hands when this is being attempted? And the Great Powers in the “Security Council”, especially China, which now has a stake in Balolchistan? And, pray, how does Doval propose to detach Balochistan? By military invasion? Far from it. Our “intelligence commando” has other plans whose elements are no secret. He proposes to do this by fomenting subversion through covert action. He could not possibly have made the claim (“you may lose Balochistan”) unless India had acquired significant “assets” there—as they are called in the idiom of covert operations—over the years. They cannot be acquired instantly. It is these existing assets, acquired, trained and funded over the years, which emboldened Doval to speak as confidently as he did.

[Riaz Haq]

#Pakistan Turns to #China in #Energy Binge With $21 Billion Investment. #Electricity #CPEC http://www.wsj.com/articles/pakistan-turns-to-china-in-energy-binge... … via @WSJ


More than 10,000 Chinese workers are now building at least 10 partly Beijing-financed energy projects across Pakistan that are set to grow the country’s energy output by 60% within two years in the first major boost to supply in two decades.Mr. Sharif’s government plans to inaugurate a nuclear plant this month and a pipeline network in January that will carry large-scale gas imports upcountry.


“Never in the history of Pakistan has there been such a big package of electricity plants in the pipeline,” said Syed Akhtar Ali, in charge of energy at the Planning Commission, the ministry tasked with long-term development.

Mr. Sharif’s promise to solve the electricity crisis propelled him to office at a time when the energy deficit was knocking some 2 percentage points off growth, economists say, stifling industry and leaving school children to study by candlelight.

Pakistan’s economic growth has risen to almost 5% annually under Mr. Sharif’ and his government set a 7% target for the years ahead. That, his government hopes, will boost the moribund private sector, reduce unemployment and provide youth with more alternatives to extremism.

The energy plan is a centerpiece of that economic aspiration. Mr. Sharif is racing to fulfill his pledge and become the first incumbent to be re-elected in a country whose voters—or the interventionist military—have long ousted its leaders for their poor performance. Mr. Sharif, who led Pakistan twice before in the 1990s, hasn’t previously even completed a term in office.

“Electric power is going to be the swing factor in the election,” said Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, the minister for petroleum. “If we don’t deliver on power, we won’t be seen as having delivered.”

Mr. Sharif’s plan depends heavily on ​China, which​ is translating its long-term strategic ties with Pakistan into an economic partnership, part of a broader infrastructure push across Eurasia. China is financing many plants as commercial investments. But to expedite projects, the Pakistani government is funding ​some​ power stations in the run up to the election, including three gas-fired plants in Mr. Sharif’s home province of Punjab. The eventual aim is to more than double Pakistan’s current output of around 16,000 megawatts.

By comparison, Washington’s multibillion-dollar civilian aid program for Pakistan has been far less ambitious, adding 1,000 megawatts to the country’s power generation in recent years by enhancing existing power stations.

The plan is to add 10,000 megawatts of the new China-backed infrastructure, a mixture of coal, gas and hydro electricity, by early 2018, months before elections, at a cost of $21 billion. The schedule is tight. The massive amounts of natural gas and coal needed for the plants require an extensive delivery system of ports, pipelines and railways. The country also needs to upgrade its power distribution network to be able to carry the extra electricity.


“My concern is that gaps in longer term planning, including much needed structural, regulatory and market reforms, will once again fall by the wayside in the euphoria of having achieved a temporary electricity supply surplus,” said Jamil Masud, a partner at Hagler Bailly Pakistan, an energy consultancy,

---
At Karachi’s Port Qasim, a $2 billion coal-fired plant is taking shape. After only 1.5 years under construction, one 400-foot high cooling tower is up and the second is almost complete. The hulking metal frames for the boilers are in place and a jetty for imported coal is taking shape. Around 4,000 people work on the site, 24 hours a day—half of them Chinese workers who aren’t allowed to step outside its boundary.

On the other side of the port, a massive tanker ship serves as a terminal for liquefied natural gas imports, which are piped across Pakistan. Three more terminals are planned by the government.

[Riaz Haq]

#China to set up large steel plant at #Gwadar, #Pakistan: Chinese Envoy. #CPEC http://www.app.com.pk/china-to-set-up-large-steel-factory-at-gwadar... … via @Associate Press Of Pakistan

Acting Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan, Zhao Lijian Monday said that his country would set up a large steel factory at Gwadar to further expedite economic developments being carried out under China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) framework.
“Both China and Pakistan would very soon sign an agreement to establish the steel factory, three times bigger than the free economic zone being set up in Gwadar city,” he made this announcement while addressing participants of a day-long conference on CPEC: Potential and Prospects organized by Strategic Vision Institute (SVI) here.
He said, industrial cooperation was the forth pillar of CPEC initiative and both the country would discuss it in the next meeting of Joint Cooperation Committee (JCC) of CPEC to be held in Beijing this month.
“After completion of energy projects, transport infrastructure and development of Gwadar Port, industrial cooperation between China and Pakistan will be the main topic at the next JCC,” he added.
Zhao Lijian informed that China was working a lot for the development of Gwadar Port which was built with the Chinese government’s assistance.
He said, after completion, the port was handed over to Singapore but there was no improvement even after passage of five years.
Finally, it was given to the Chinese government by Pakistan government and the port was made functional and a ship carrying Chinese goods left for Africa.
He said, a business centre, hostel for different companies, fisheries processing plant with cold storage facility had been established in the free economic zone spread over around nine kilometers.
About Gwadar airport up-gradation, he said, the new international airport would have landing facility for all the modern aircraft including A-380 Airbus after completion, adding, prior to the up-gradation only C-130 or propeller-planes could land at the old airport.
The Acting Chinese Ambassador said, a 150-bed hospital was being built for the treatment of local people while a vocational institute had been set up for imparting training of different skills especially for the fishermen.
Talking about different energy project being completed under CPEC initiative in different parts of Pakistan, he particularly mentioned about the coal-based power plants which were being built in accordance with environmental standard set by the World Bank (WB) and other concerned international organizations.
He said, China produces around 60 percent of its total power generation through coal based power stations using modern and state of the art technology.
“The environmental concerns will be taken into consideration during the completion of these power stations,” he added.
Zhao Lijian pointed out hydro power plant, coal based power plants, wind power plants and solar based power plants were being set up to meet the electricity shortage in Pakistan.
He informed that the Karot Power Plant was being financed by the Silk Bank established by the Chinese government.
The groundbraking of Suki Kinari, Kohala Hydro Power Project would be held early next year, he said and added, Sahiwal Power Plant and Port Qasim Power Plant would be completed by next June and December respectively.
He said, a power plant set up at Thar coal site would also be inaugurated in next June.
He said, HUBCO power plant, one of the biggest coal-based power plant, would provide constant and stable power supply throughout the year.

[Riaz Haq]

#China to set up large steel plant at #Gwadar, #Pakistan: Chinese Envoy. #CPEC http://www.app.com.pk/china-to-set-up-large-steel-factory-at-gwadar... … via @Associate Press Of Pakistan

The Acting Chinese Ambassador said, the 50MW wind power plants and the 100-MW solar power plant set up at Balochistan would boost the power production and hoped there would be no loadshedding in Pakistan after completion of all energy projects.
Giving overview of transport infrastructure projects, he said, the Multan-Sukkur section of Peshawar-Karachi motorway would be completed at a cost of US$ 2.8 billion.
He pointed out that no other country was ready to support this project because of being less populated and having less-transport.
China came forward to build this project on Built-Operate-Transfer (BOT) basis in three years.
He said, KKH Phase-II would be completed at a cost of US$ 1.3 billion, adding, its Phase-I had already been completed while Phase-III would soon be planned.
About railways upgradation, he said, after completion of dual tracks, speed of trains could be enhanced upto 160 km per hours.
Speaking on the occasion, Chairman, Parliamentary Committee on CPEC, Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed said, the CPEC initiative would be beneficial for not only Pakistan and China but also the South Asia and regions beyond.
He said, at a time when nobody was coming forward to help Pakistan, China extended support and confidence to its time-tested friend.
He informed that the land route of CPEC would connect 65 countries through Pakistan’s Gwadar port.
He said, China’s cooperation in energy sector, transport infrastructure development including railways upgradation, Gwadar port, development of Thar coal, Karachi-Peshawar motorway, employment to 10,000 Pakistanis and early harvest projects under CPEC had given a new impetus to economic growth.
“These projects have not only pushed Pakistan economic revival but also help integrate different parts of our country,” he added.
Mushahid opined that importance of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) had increased manifold for regional cooperation and after India’s stubborn attitude regarding South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC).
In his welcome address, President, SVI, Dr. Zafar Iqbal Cheema said that the CPEC was not only a game changer for South Asia but also for Central Asia and regions beyond.
He said, CPEC would have global implications over the time, adding, it would promote trade and economic activities in the entire region.

[Riaz Haq]

Dr Jean-Francois Di Meglio, President of #Asia Centre in #France: "#CPEC is a game-changer for #Pakistan". #China
https://www.dawn.com/news/1303725/cpec-is-a-game-changer-for-pakistan

KARACHI: China may have more core benefits from the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) but it’s a game-changer for Pakistan which will also benefit from it. Contrary to what some Europeans think, Pakistan has a strategic position in the region.

This was one of the main points raised by Dr Jean-Francois Di Meglio in his lecture on ‘The Economic, Strategic and Environmental Consequences of the New Silk Roads’ at the Area Study Centre for Europe (ASCE), University of Karachi, on Wednesday.

Dr Di Meglio, who is President, Asia Centre, France, said he was not an expert on CPEC so what he would talk about was based on his experiences. He said his talk was divided in two parts: Europe’s standpoint on the Silk Road project and China’s point of view.

Regarding the first part, Dr Di Meglio said when China announced the project in 2013, Europeans were doubtful about it. They thought since it was a 35-year project nothing could be achieved in the short term. They also thought that China was trying to rejuvenate something that used to exist in the past and there was no point doing it. Some people, however, harboured the notion that it was part of a grand plan. It was innovative because earlier the flow [of goods] was from West to East and now China was trying to reverse the direction of history.

Shedding light on what Silk Road used to be, Dr Di Meglio said in the late 20th century it was just a road but also entailed some key points and strategic places, one of which was the area crossing the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. In modern history, he said, two significant events took place. The first was the Great Game between Russia and Britain at the end of the 19th century where Russia had accumulated wealth and wanted access to the sea; the other was the Afghanistan War that resulted in the disintegration of the USSR.

Dr Di Meglio said it was complicated for Europeans to talk about CPEC but countries like Germany and France had shown interest in it. With regard to negative feedback, some Central Asian countries were of the view that Russia was trying to re-establish links with China and the risk was that “China would be too much present”. But the Europeans discarded many important factors, he said.

On the Chinese approach to the situation Dr Di Meglio said [economic] reforms in China started in 1978 and after 35 years, in 2013, they came up with another project. If you looked at the dates, another 35 years added to 2013 would mean the arrival of the year 2048. In 2047 Hong Kong would come back to Chinese sovereignty fully; and 2049 would be the 100th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. He said reforms brought in 1978 came through a simple process: enrichment. If the people were richer they would be easier to manage. The Silk Road had the potential of making some countries marginally richer. That could be done by building infrastructure and by linking them up with China.

Dr Di Meglio said CPEC was not an easy project but was not the most difficult to achieve either. There was room for Pakistani companies and politicians to take the initiative and speak to the Chinese for a level playing field as much as possible. Whosoever was going to benefit more from it, it was a game-changer for Pakistan. He argued that let’s say Pakistan was only benefiting 10 per cent from the project; even then you had other benefits like “influence” and “footprint”. He said some Europeans thought that Pakistan existed because there was a partition in 1947; they did not realise that Pakistan had an important strategic position.

On China’s ambitions, Dr Di Meglio said while it wanted prosperity and stability, it did not want domination in the region. China knew that in the past empires rose and fell. “The way to last long is not to dominate other countries but to play with them.”

[Riaz Haq]

#Pakistan Opens New 340MW Nuclear Power Plant Built With #China's Help. #CPEC

http://www.voanews.com/a/pakistan-nuclear-reactor/3653908.html

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has inaugurated a nuclear power facility built with the assistance of China.

The plant at Chashma, in Pakistan's Punjab province, adds 340 megawatts to the national grid. Beijing has already constructed two other nuclear reactors, with a combined capacity of more than 600 megawatts.

The three power plants at Chashma are known as C-1, C-2 and C-3 respectively. They are are part of broader plans to overcome long-running crippling power shortages in Pakistan.

“The next (nuclear) power projectwith an installed capacity of 340 megawatts, C-4, is also being built here (in Chashma with Chinese assistance). God willing, it will be operational and connected to the national grid in April, 2017,” Sharif told Wednesday’s ceremony.

Pakistan’s current electricity output stands at around 16,000 megawatts, including nuclear power production.

The government plans to increase the power production by about 60 percent, mainly through Chinese-funded coal, gas and hydro-electricity projects under construction to try to boost Sharif’s re-election bid in next polls due in early 2018.

When Sharif took office in 2013Pakistanis were facingcompulsory power outages for up to 12 hours a day, crippling daily life and plunging businesses into darkness.

The prime minister in his speech Wednesday reiterated his election promise to resolve the crisis by the next elections.

Officials say that Chinese experts and engineers had been running the newly-built C-3 plant “on a trial basis” for three months until they formally handed over its control to their Pakistani counterparts Wednesday.

Beijing is also helping Islamabad construct two nuclear power plants in the southern port city of Karachi at a cost of around $10 billion. The projects, with a combined capacity of around 2,200 megawatts, are scheduled to be completed by 2021.

Under the agreement, China will also provide enriched uranium for fuel.

The Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) envisages a nuclear power production of around 8,800 megawatts by 2030.

Pakistan built its first nuclear power plant of 137 megawatts at Karachi in 1972 and it is still in operation, though at a much reduced capacity.

China is the only country helping Pakistan build nuclear power plants because Western nations have put a moratorium on the supply of these facilities citing Islamabad’s nuclear weapons program.

Under a multi-billion dollar cooperation agreement, Beijing is also helping Pakistan construct a network of roads, rails, communication and power projects to boostties between the two traditionally close allies.

The bilateral cooperation under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) plans to link the northwestern Xinjiang region to Pakistani deep-water port of Gwadar Gwadar in the Arabian Sea, providing Beijing the shortest possible access for its imports and exports to international markets.

[Riaz Haq]

#China to Fund 4,000 MW Power Transmission Line in #Pakistan. #CPEC https://thewire.in/90574/china-power-line-pakistan/ … via @thewire_in

State Grid of China will help build a 4,000 MW power transmission line in Pakistan in a project valued at $1.5 billion, Pakistan said on Friday, the latest in a series of Chinese investments in its South Asian neighbour.

The high-capacity transmission line will be the first of its kind in Pakistan and will link Matiari town in the south, near a new power station, to Lahore city in the east, a key link in transmission infrastructure, the Pakistani government said.

An agreement on the project was signed on Thursday in Beijing between Mohammad Younus Dagha, Pakistan’s secretary of water and power, and Shu Yinbiao, chairman of State Grid Corporation of China, the government said in a statement.

Construction will begin in January, and should take about 20 months, said a spokesman for the Pakistani prime minister’s office.

Pakistan has been plagued by a shortage of electricity for years, with widespread rolling blackouts in both rural and urban areas.

The government has managed to reduce load shedding – scheduled power outages – in some areas, but production gaps and distribution woes remain.

The project is the latest in a series of big Chinese investments, most of which fall under a planned $55 billion worth of projects for a China Pakistan Economic Corridor.

The corridor is a combination of power and infrastructure projects that link western China to Pakistan’s southern port of Gwadar.

Other Chinese investment in Pakistan has included the acquisition of a majority stake by Shanghai Electric of the K-Electric power production and distribution company for $1.8 billion.

Last week, a Chinese-led consortium bought a 40 percent stake of the Pakistan Stock Exchange for an estimated $85 million.

[Riaz Haq]

#Pakistan Builds New Missile Boat to Protect Key Trade Routes #CPEC #Gwadar http://www.defensenews.com/articles/pakistan-builds-new-missile-boa... …

Pakistan has commenced construction of a new type of missile boat as part of efforts to modernize its navy to ensure security for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a trade route linking western China to the Arabian Sea via Pakistan’s deep water port of Gwadar.

Pakistan hopes the CPEC will revive its economy, whereas China’s trade and energy resources will be bypassing the Malacca Strait.

First steel for the boat was cut Dec. 29. Images from the ceremony revealed it to be a development of the Azmat-class missile boat designed for Pakistan by China. Three Azmat boats have been built, one in China and two in Pakistan by state-owned Karachi Shipyard & Engineering Works (KSEW).

A statement by the military’s Inter Service Public Relations media arm revealed that the boat, which is considered the first indigenously designed missile boat, was developed by Maritime Technologies Complex and would have the “latest weapons and sensors.”

Though released images from the ceremony leave some questions unanswered about the new vessels' exact features, notable differences from the base model include new missiles, a redesigned forward superstructure and a possible replacement of the twin 25mm cannon. 

The navy declined to provide further details regarding the changes.

Defense News first learned of the new missile boat during IDEAS 2016, Pakistan’s biennial defense exhibition held in November, when spokesmen for the shipyard KSEW and the sea service separately revealed the existence of the program.

Though unwilling to go into detail, they said the new design would feature new weaponry, sensors and materials. Future plans include an indigenous combat management system, anti-ship missiles and possibly air-defense missiles, the lack of which is presently a notable weakness.

The Azmat missile boats are armed with eight C-802A/CSS-N-8 Saccade anti-ship missiles, but the new design is clearly armed with six larger missiles. Speculation is that the weapons are the C-602, an export development of China’s YJ-62, which is in Pakistani service as a coastal defense missile named "Zarb."

The subsonic C-602 has a reported range of 280 kilometers and carries a 300-kilogram warhead. It packs a bigger punch and has longer reach than the C-802A.

However, last year, a Ministry of Defence Production report revealed a ship-board launcher for a land-attack cruise missile was under development.

Pakistan’s only surface-launched, land-attack missile is the indigenous Babur. Thus far there have been no reports of an anti-ship variant, but fitting the C-602 seeker to the missile would certainly expedite development.

News of the new missile boat comes amid Chinese reluctance to establish a permanent presence in the area, forcing Pakistan to forge ahead with efforts to improve its maritime security, albeit with Chinese help.