Ahsan Iqbal, Minister for Planning, Development, and Special Initiatives, said Monday that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s visit to China would take bilateral trade relations to new heights, with both countries signing multiple billion-dollar projects.
The PM’s visit to China will aid in the development of a strategy to increase the country’s annual exports to $100 billion and beyond, the minister said during a press conference here. During his visit, he stated that Pakistan would sign an agreement with China to gain firsthand technical experience from the all-weather friendly country.
He stated that China has repeatedly expressed its desire to assist Pakistan in developing an industrial economy, but the previous PTI government squandered four precious years by suspending the most important megaproject of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
On October 27, a virtual meeting of the JCC was held in which the CPEC projects were reviewed, and both parties agreed to expand the scope of the project and expedite work on ongoing CPEC projects. The final agreement was also agreed to be signed during Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s visit to China.
The railway’s ML-1, according to Ahsan Iqbal, was Pakistan’s most important project because the existing system had become obsolete, and thus this project would have to be initiated on an emergency basis.
Unfortunately, he stated that due to the previous government’s criminal negligence, this project saw no progress over the last several years, resulting in a $3 billion cost increase from the previously approved cost of $6.8 billion to $9.8 billion.
He also stated that a new road project of Karachi-Hyderabad motorway would be signed during the visit, and that work on the new motorway between Karachi and Hyderabad would begin following the visit.
Similarly, Karachi’s KCR project would be signed during the visit to provide citizens with cutting-edge transportation similar to the orange train in Lahore.
He added that the Dera Ismail Khan-Zhob road project and the Mirpur-Muzafarabad-Manshehra road project are also likely to be signed under CPEC.
