Strategic Pak-China Economic Corridor, Connectivity and Maritime Cooperation

[Riaz Haq]

China's new Prime Minister Mr. Li KeQiang has just ended a two-day visit to Pakistan. Speaking to the Senate, Li declared that "the development of China cannot be separated from the friendship with Pakistan". To make it more concrete, the Chinese Premier brought with him a 5-points proposal which emphasizes "strategic and long-term planning", "connectivity and maritime sectors" and "China-Pakistan economic corridor project".

Source: China Daily

From L to R: Premier Lee, President Zardari and Prime Minister Khoso

Here's a recent report by  China's State-owned Xinhua News Agency that can help put the Chinese premier's speech in context:

“As a global economic power, China has a tremendous number of economic sea lanes to protect. China is justified to develop its military capabilities to safeguard its sovereignty and protect its vast interests around the world."

The Xinhua report has for the first time shed light on China's growing concerns with US pivot to Asia which could threaten China's international trade and its economic lifeline of energy and other natural resources it needs to sustain and grow its economy. This concern has been further reinforced by the following:

1. Frequent US statements to "check" China's rise.  For example, former US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a 2011 address to the Naval Postgraduate School in California: "We try everything we can to cooperate with these rising powers and to work with them, but to make sure at the same time that they do not threaten stability in the world, to be able to project our power, to be able to say to the world that we continue to be a force to be reckoned with." He added that "we continue to confront rising powers in the world - China, India, Brazil, Russia, countries that we need to cooperate with. We need to hopefully work with. But in the end, we also need to make sure do not threaten the stability of the world."

Source: The Guardian

2. Chinese strategists see a long chain of islands from Japan in the north, all the way down to Australia, all United States allies, all potential controlling chokepoints that could  block Chinese sea lanes and cripple its economy, business and industry.

Karakoram Highway-World's Highest Paved International Road at 15000 ft.

Chinese Premier's emphasis on "connectivity and maritime sectors" and "China-Pakistan economic corridor project" is mainly driven by their paranoia about the US intentions to "check China's rise" It is intended to establish greater maritime presence at Gwadar, located close to the strategic Strait of Hormuz, and  to build land routes (motorways, rail links, pipelines)  from the Persian Gulf through Pakistan to Western China. This is China's insurance to continue trade with West Asia and the Middle East in case of hostilities with the United States and its allies in Asia.

Pakistan's Gawadar Port- located 400 Km from the Strait of Hormuz

As to the benefits for Pakistanis, the Chinese investment in "connectivity and maritime sectors" and "China-Pakistan economic corridor project" will help build infrastructure, stimulate Pakistan's economy and create millions of badly needed jobs.

Clearly, China-Pakistan ties have now become much more strategic than the US-Pakistan ties, particularly since 2011 because, as American Journalist Mark Mazzetti of New York Times put it, the  Obama administration's heavy handed policies "turned Pakistan against the United States". A similar view is offered by a former State Department official Vali Nasr in his book "The Dispensable Nation".

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[Riaz Haq]

Net FDI in Pakistan up 76% from 2011-12 to 2012-13:

Net foreign direct investment into Pakistan rose 76 percent in the fiscal year 2012-13, which ended in June, reaching $1.447 billion compared to previous year, according to data from the State Bank of Pakistan.
Between July and June, there was an inflow of $2.653 billion and outflow of $1.205 billion, according to the central bank. In the same period the year earlier, there was an inflow of $2.099 billion and outflow of $1.278 billion.
During June this year, net foreign direct investment rose to $128 million compared to $56 million a year earlier.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2013\07\17\story_17-7-2013_pg5_3

[Riaz Haq]

Here's a UPI report on Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline extension to China:

The Pakistani government said it expects to discuss the possible extension of a natural gas pipeline from Iran during talks this week with Chinese officials.

Pakistani Petroleum Secretary Abid Saeed said the project could be completed by the end of next year. He said Pakistan will receive 750 million cubic feet of natural gas from Iran each day through the pipeline once all operations are completed.

India has been included as potential partner in the pipeline. The U.S. government favors a rival project planned from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

Pakistan hosted Chinese delegates Monday to discuss extending the Iranian pipeline through to western China, the Press Trust of India reported.

Both sides are expected to review options for oil links as well, the Indian newspaper said. Pakistan's aging infrastructure and energy sector mismanagement has left most the country without a reliable source of electricity.

Islamabad said a looming energy crisis in the country is a greater threat than terrorism. India, meanwhile, relies on natural gas imports because it lacks the infrastructure necessary to take advantage of its own reserves.

Chinese economic expansion is such that its energy demands are outpacing the rest of the world.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy-Resources/2013/08/26/Pakist...

[Riaz Haq]

Ex #US Amb to UN John Bolton on $1.67B aid to #Pakistan: ‘Grit your teeth’ and pay - Washington Times:

“You also have to weigh … [that] if we didn’t support this government, the government could fall to Pakistani radicals,” he said.
The larger issue, Mr. Bolton said, is preventing terrorists from wresting control of the country’s 60 to 100 nuclear weapons that could deploy to the U.S. Turning the admittedly chaotic Pakistan-U.S. relations into something colder could prove a sizable security issue, he said.

http://wtim.es/1bdtxK9 via @washtimes

[Riaz Haq]

Here's an FT report on how Pakistan's top central banker used Chinese line of credit to stabilize economy:

In May, with Pakistan’s rupee looking particularly weak, its balance of payments parlous and election jitters increasing, Yaseen Anwar, the head of State Bank of Pakistan, quietly took advantage of a little-known clause in the bank’s central currency swap agreement with the People’s Bank of China and borrowed almost $600m. By drawing down on part of a $1.5bn line of credit, the government was able to report that far from showing a big deficit, Pakistan’s balance of payments were positive at the end of the month.
By the end of June the rupee was under less pressure and by early September the new government of Nawaz Sharif had signed an agreement with the International Monetary Fund that further stabilised the ailing currency.

“China helped us weather the storm,” Mr Anwar says.
Drawing down the Chinese line of credit, of course, was cosmetic: it did not change the underlying economic and financial realities. But since most market participants, including virtually every foreign banker in Karachi, had no idea that the improvement was essentially technical, it contributed to more positive sentiment.
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China is quietly but steadily increasing its footprint both in Asia and in emerging markets across the globe. It is especially effective in places such as Pakistan, which are desperately short of capital and in dire need of foreign assistance to tackle the shortcomings of their infrastructure, from telecoms equipment to turbines. The line of credit from the PBoC is largely symbolic, a small part of the billions of dollars from banks such as China Development Bank and China Export Import Bank. China’s vendor financing model has become a principal engine for the development of Pakistan at a time when few foreigners will even get on a flight to visit it.
For example, one of the biggest obstacles to growth in this country of almost 200m people – soon to be the world’s fourth most populous nation – is energy. Pakistan has recently decided to develop its vast reserves of low- quality coal in the Thar desert of Sindh province to fuel its power plants. That is not exactly the fashionable choice in many parts of the world, but Pakistani executives say they rely on coal for less than 1 per cent of their power today, in contrast to say India or China, where the figure is more like 80 per cent.
China is promising to develop some of the Thar tracts and provide financing and equipment to help private Pakistani companies such as Engro develop other tracts.
The Chinese are also taking over management of Pakistan’s newest port, Gwadar, in the west, and will help construct a road that leads from to its border and then on to the oil-rich “stans” of central Asia. That will give China access to yet another warm-water port in Asia and cut by half the time taken by Chinese exports to reach many parts of the world from its western regions. Like so much of what China does, that combines the strategic interests of Beijing with the ability to help its best geopolitical friends develop.
For the Pakistanis, isolated from the west, that sort of self-interest is not a problem: it means that they have leverage with Beijing. Today less than 10 per cent of Pakistani exports go to China and virtually all are priced in dollars. But its biggest lender, Habib Bank, has a China desk in its Islamabad branch and a rep office in Beijing. When executives went to China for a symposium, they were courted by senior banking officials. For Pakistanis who feel that many parts of the world have turned their backs on their country, such courtship is almost painfully welcome.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/63e4900a-4872-11e3-8237-00144feabdc0...

[Riaz Haq]

Here's a South China Post story on China's western land route thru Pakistan:

..."We want to open to the west and use your country to help us develop a corridor for trade and tourism," Zhu Rongji said, pointing to the giant map of China on the wall behind his desk.

It was 1993, and Shahid Javed Burki, then director of the World Bank's China operations and later Pakistan's caretaker finance minister, was calling on the then vice-premier in Beijing.

China, Zhu told him, was different from other big countries in that it had sea access only on one side. That was where Pakistan came in.

China's "all-weather friend" is an integral part of its "look west" policy to find economic sustenance for landlocked western provinces. This is why China in 1986 started working on a 600-kilometre highway across the Karakoram mountain range connecting Kashgar in Xinjiang province with Pakistan's northeast.

Nearly three decades on, Burki is on a mission to expand the highway into an ambitious 2,000km China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. It will connect the deepwater Pakistani port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea with Xinjiang, providing China easy access to fuel imports from the Middle East and Africa while creating a cheap overland export route to a maritime exit port for interior provinces such as Gansu and Qinghai.

"The idea is to develop the Karakoram Highway into a motorway network all the way to Gwadar, establish a railway line and two pipelines for oil and gas, and create industrial hubs along the way," Burki said.

The corridor is conceived and planned at the cost of India's interests S.D. MUNI, FORMER AMBASSADOR
Largely financed and built by Beijing, Gwadar is strategically located near the Strait of Hormuz that channels a third of the world's oil trade. It could play a major role in China's energy security by providing a much shorter alternative to the current, circuitous 12,900km route from the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Malacca to China's eastern seaboard.

But the port and the corridor are not without their problems. Baluchistan province, where Gwadar is located, has been grappling with a low-intensity separatist insurgency. Many Chinese workers have been attacked and killed amid the violence, often making Beijing wary of the venture.

Shahid Javed Burki
The ascent of a new leadership in Beijing, however, seems to have given the China-Pakistan corridor plan a new impetus just as it has done to a proposed Bangladesh China India Myanmar corridor that would provide landlocked Yunnan province access to the Bay of Bengal.

In February, the Pakistani government transferred the contract for running Gwadar from the Port of Singapore Authority to China Overseas Port. During the Pakistan leg of his first overseas trip as premier in May, Li Keqiang vowed to "speed up" the project. An agreement was signed in July when Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif visited China within a month of returning to power.

Burki estimates the corridor will take five to 10 years to set up and cost up to US$15 billion. Efforts are being made to raise the money through structured finance instruments with the help of the countries, donor agencies and industrial sectors that will gain from the corridor.

"There is an active South Asian diaspora in the world of structured finance who we hope to rope in," Burki said.

To do that, he is chairing a special session on the economic corridor at the South Asian Diaspora Convention in Singapore this week, hosted by the National University of Singapore's Institute of South Asian Studies....

http://www.scmp.com/business/commodities/article/1359761/pakistan-h...

[Riaz Haq]

Here's an AFP story on Chinese financing big-money projects in Pakistan:

Pakistan's recent launch of work on its largest nuclear power plant is the latest example of big-money Chinese infrastructure projects in the troubled nation.

Pakistan, plagued by a homegrown Taliban insurgency, is battling to get its economy back on track and solve a chronic energy crisis that cripples industry.

Politicians in Beijing and Islamabad are fond of extolling the profundity of their friendship in flowery rhetoric and on the ground this has translated into around 10,000 Chinese engineers and workers flocking to Pakistan.

Chinese companies are working on more than 100 major projects in energy, roads and technology, according to Pakistani officials, with an estimated US$18 billion expected to be invested in the coming years.

"Some projects are being done by the government, then most of the projects are being done by the Chinese companies, by the provinces and also with the state enterprises and authorities," said Ahsan Iqbal, Pakistan's federal minister for planning and development. "In the energy sector, Chinese engineers are building up to 15 power projects that include hydel [hydroelectric], thermal and nuclear plants."

Pakistan faces an electricity shortfall of around 4,000 megawatts in the sweltering summer, leading to lengthy blackouts that make ordinary people's lives a misery and have strangled economic growth.

To combat the crisis, Pakistan has sought Chinese help in building power-generation projects across the country, including nuclear. Aside from the 2,200MW project near Karachi recently launched by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Chinese companies built two of Pakistan's three operational reactors. Chinese engineers are also busy in the construction of a 969MW hydropower project in Kashmir. They have also committed to generate 6,000MW of electricity from coal and wind in southern Sindh province.

But co-operation goes beyond energy. Visiting in May during his first overseas trip after taking office, Premier Li Keqiang linked growth in his country's restive west with that in Pakistan, saying the two sides wanted to create an "economic corridor" to boost development.

The concept involves improving road and rail networks to link China through Pakistan to the Arabian Sea and Iqbal said its benefits would extend to other neighbouring countries.

"The biggest flagship project is going to be the economic corridor," he said. "I hope with its completion, we will be able to create opportunities not just for China and Pakistan but for the entire region."

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1376341/string-big-money-pro...

[Riaz Haq]

Here's an AP story on China's investment in projects in Pakistan:

BEIJING (AP) — Longtime allies Pakistan and China signed agreements Wednesday to build a new airport and upgrade the fabled Karakorum Highway as part of efforts to build an "economic corridor" through rugged mountains and regions torn by insurgent violence.

The signings followed a summit in Beijing between Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain and Chinese leader Xi Jinping that underscored close ties between the neighbors.

"Friendship with China is the most important pillar of our foreign policy and security policy," Hussain said in brief comments at the start of their meeting, which followed a formal welcoming ceremony at Beijing's Great Hall of the People.

VIDEO: The Conflict in Pakistan That’s Never Discussed
Xi said "the Chinese people cherish a profound friendship with the people of Pakistan."

While Islamabad and Beijing have long found common cause in opposing mutual rival India and cooperate closely in military and diplomatic affairs, economic ties have lagged. That's largely a result of Pakistan's poorly functioning government and lack of basic infrastructure such as power plants for generating electricity, something Pakistan is looking to China for help improving. Two-way trade exceeded $12 billion for the first time in 2012, a tiny fraction of China's overall commerce with the world.

The planned economic corridor will incorporate a 2,000-kilometer (1,200-mile) transport link connecting Kashgar in northwestern China to the little-used Pakistani port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea near the border with Iran. That could at some point include a railway and oil pipeline.

VIDEO: How Does China Impact the Global Economy?
The project received a major boost when control of Gwadar was transferred to China's state-owned China Overseas Ports Holding Co. Ltd. in February 2013. Built by Chinese workers and opened in 2007, Gwadar is undergoing a major expansion to turn it into a full-fledged, deep-water commercial port.

One of the agreements signed Wednesday was a preliminary accord for constructing an international airport at Gwadar. Another was for upgrading a section of the 1,300-kilometer (800-mile) Karakorum Highway connecting to Islamabad.

The sides last year already agreed to build a fiber-optic cable to be laid from the Chinese border to the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi which will boost Pakistan's access to international communications networks. China is to provide 85 percent of the financing for the three-year project's $44 million budget, with Pakistan covering the rest.

VIDEO: China Chanels Resources in Wrong Direction: Beamish
If the corridor project takes off, oil from the Middle East could be offloaded at Gwadar, which is located just outside the mouth of the Persian Gulf, and transported to China through the lawless Baluchistan province in Pakistan and over the towering Karakoram mountains. Such a link would vastly cut the 12,000-kilometer (7,500-mile) route that Mideast oil supplies must now take to reach Chinese ports.

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2014-02-19/pakistan-president-to-dis...

[Riaz Haq]

Here's a PV-Tech report on $20 billion investment in Pakistan:

China has agreed to invest US$20 billion in Pakistan's energy infrastructure.

On a three day visit to China, Pakistan president Manmoon Hussain and minister for Punjab, Shahbaz Sharif met with financial and development companies and banks in Beijing, and signed MoUs for continued investment in solar projects in Pakistan.

An estimated US$20 billion in energy investment has been promised; in return China will take ownership of coal plants, a document issued on Wednesday stated.

The investment will go towards solar, hydropower and coal power plants.

Sharif informed Chinese delegates on the trip that a solar plant in South Punjab is to be operational by the end of this year.

The investment will make a significant contribution to combating energy shortages in Pakistan.

According to the Associated Press of Pakistan, the MoUs signed included progress for the Pakistan-China Economic Corridor, an MoU co-establishing national joint research centres for small-scale hydro power technology, and cooperation on other construction projects.

Shahbaz Sharif’s official Facebook page stated yesterday the “mutually agreed China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is a gigantic development project which would prove to be a game changer in transforming the whole region by generating massive trade and economic activity”.

In a meeting between China and Pakistan’s Joint Cooperation Committee (JCC) to finalise projects to be part of the Economic Corridor, Sharif said thanks to a comprehensive framework of the JCC, Economic Cooperation Group, Joint Energy Working Group, Joint Investment Committee and several other mechanisms, the volume of trade had almost exceeded US$12 billion, with Pakistan’s exports increasing by 48%.

Punjab minister Sharif told The Guardian "security agencies" in Pakistan and India are acting as "blockages" to free trade between China and Pakistan. He said: "Unless you have economic security then you can't have general security."

The Punjab ministry said in a statement this January: “Shahbaz Sharif has said that resolving of energy crisis is the top priority of the government as it is essential for economic development and strengthening of economy.”

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said in a press conference yesterday that President Xi Jinping and President Hussain spoke “highly of the development of bilateral relations, the two presidents agreed to jointly uphold and develop the traditional friendship and translate that into more tangible results of cooperation”, with both countries working towards “steering cooperation in energy”.

The China-Pakistan meeting prioritised projects and practical cooperation in energy infrastructure, with the two sides reaching “extensive consensus” Chunying said.

A statement published yesterday from the Foreign Ministry said “The two sides will speed up the second phase of negotiations on China-Pakistan Free Trade Area and push forward a balanced growth of trade between the two countries. The Chinese government encourages Chinese enterprises to invest and develop in Pakistan"..

It added that an “advance [in] cooperation in the fields of energy” will be pursued.

In October Sharif visited China to discuss solar energy projects and China offered Punjab 32GW of exported electricity.

In September last year the Punjab government finalised plans for 700MW of solar power.

Pakistan’s government separately signed MoUs for 150MW with a consortium of European countries and another with China North Industries Corporation (NORINCO) as well as 400 smaller solar projects in the pipeline.

Pakistan also finally announced FiT rates for large-scale solar projects last month.
..

http://www.pv-tech.org/news/china_to_invest_us20_billion_in_pakista...

[Riaz Haq]

Here's an interesting Op Ed by a NZ doctoral candidate Christopher Barber in the Diplomat on Pakistan-China economic corridor:

Historian Daniel Headrick made the crucial connection between means and ends in the projection of global influence. For instance, Headrick argued that the Suez Canal, which opened in 1869, acted a tool of empire for the great powers of the nineteenth century. The building of a canal through the Sinai Peninsula not only made trade and empire in Asia faster by avoiding the Cape of Good Hope, but more economical too. This was particularly the case for the world’s superpower, Great Britain. For Britain, the Suez was an important strategic consideration in its imperial outlook, making the transport of goods, officials and soldiers to Bombay and other key colonial hubs easier and affordable....
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With the development of the corridor, Central Asia, traditionally an economically closed region owing to its geography and lack of infrastructure, will have greater access to the sea and to the global trade network. For Afghanistan and Tajikistan, both of which have signed transit agreements with Pakistan, it will provide a more economical means of transporting goods, making their export products more competitive globally. For China, meanwhile, the corridor will provide it with direct access to the Indian Ocean, enabling China to project itself strategically into the mineral and oil rich regions of Western Asia and Africa (and beyond). And for Pakistan, the project provides the country not only a third deep-sea port but also a better connected gateway into China’s backyard, giving Pakistan the potential to make good on its free trade agreement with the dragon economy.

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Nevertheless, the corridor will play a crucial role in advancing Pakistan’s economic power. Exporting, transiting, and transporting goods into and out of Central Asia and carrying them away on the current of the world’s sea lanes, the Pakistan-China corridor will be a vital factor in Pakistan’s economic future. The corridor is best thought of as a comprehensive infrastructure package encompassing a wide range of spinoffs, including gas and oil pipelines, railways, an expressway from Karachi to Lahore, fiber-optic cabling, metro bus and underground services for key Pakistani cities....

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In reality, agriculture, chemicals, textiles, and various other manufactured items are the stuff of Pakistan’s true productivity—items that are tradable on the global market and capable of boosting national income. Pakistan has always been well placed to export given its access to the Indian Ocean and proximity to key markets in the West and East, to say nothing of its international reach through the Pakistani diaspora and the fact that it has the third largest English-speaking population in the world. Despite government absenteeism—that reoccurring failure within the political sphere to respond to the Taliban and to the reactionaries that routinely thwart Pakistan’s potential—as well as rampant inflation and a serious lack of currency reserves, Pakistan’s private sector has proven resilient, capable of going in for global trade with the right encouragement. The cue is now for the Pakistani government and the business community to formulate a more global economic policy.

As it stands, the failure to fully capitalize on the free trade agreement between China and Pakistan demonstrates the need for a major policy effort to make the most of the corridor. For one, the Pakistani government needs to place greater emphasis on trade relations in its overall foreign policy as well as foster the exporting aspirations of small and midsize companies. Expansive economic policy, continued liberal reform, and, above all, an improved security situation are the formula needed to make full use of the tools of globalization which Pakistan will soon have at its disposal.

http://thediplomat.com/2014/02/the-pakistan-china-corridor/

[Riaz Haq]

Here's an excerpt of a report on the importance of Pak-China economic corridor:

A study on “A Socio-Political study of Gilgit-Baltistan” conducted by Omar Farooq Zain stated that northern areas are geo-strategic as well as trade because of its borders with China, Afghanistan and India. As a potential gateway to Central Asia, the northern area location becomes unique.

In addition to the trading importance of Gilgit-Baltistan and its environs, its site at the doorstep of China and Central Asia, with Afghanistan and India close by, makes it a very important cultural region.

K. Warikoo in his book Himalayan Studies in India pointed out that the British used Ladakh and adjoining areas in Gilgit, Skardu, Hunza and Chitral as “frontier listening posts” to check the developments in Central Asia and Xinjiang throughout the Dogra period.

The leadership of both Pakistan and China in the recent past had thought it advisable to build up an economic corridor that can open up the underdeveloped areas of the region to a new era of economic development and prosperity.

The elites of both countries have termed Pakistan-China Economic Corridor as “future of the world,” as almost 3 billion people, which is almost half of the world’s population, from China, South Asia, Central Asia could benefit from this economic corridor.

The official data provided by Pakistan’s Federal Ministry of Planning and Development showed that being one of the biggest transit trade routes in the world, it would link China to the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa and other regions and give access to the landlocked countries to the world biggest markets, India and China.

It stated that the Pakistan-China Economic Corridor would be of high economic value as about the 3 billion people at both sides of the border would be its direct beneficiary while the overall bilateral trade volume would be increased to 7 billion dollars.

The data further showed that Pakistan intends to get the greatest benefit out of this project and for that it has planned to establish industrial parks and economic zones along the Kashgar-Gwadar trade corridor.

Pakistan’s central government’s seriousness to get maximum benefits from the Pakistan-China Economic Corridor can be judged with the fact that it has already approved the projects worth 52 billion to be started in the economic zones.

Dr. Zafar Mehmod, a prominent economist, opined that the poverty rate would be reduced to the minimum while the unemployment would almost come to an end.

Talking about the economic corridor, Javed Shahzad Malik, the high official of Ministry of Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan, said the dream of building up economic corridor is being translated into reality and work is under way to upgrade KKH, motorways, and railway lines, fiber optic, and oil and gas pipe lines.

He said a number of tunnels with overall length of 200 km would be constructed on different locations to maintain the vehicular speed on KKH at 80 km per hour.

Speaking with a Kabul-based Journalist, writer and political activist who worked as an advisor in the Hamid Karzai government, Azam Beg Tajik hoped that such a trade route would become a profitable hub and economic activity center, serving as a lifeline to the economy of the country in the near future.

Given the future economic prospects highlighted by the experts, government officials and local people, it is expected the Pakistan-China Economic Corridor would not only help boost economic activities but also bring the socioeconomic conditions and living standard in this region at par with other developed regions of the world.

http://www.sharnoffsglobalviews.com/pakistan-china-economy-315/