Mr. Khalid Mansoor, special assistant to the Prime Minister for China Pakistan economic corridor (CPEC) gave out a public statement in which he highlighted the importance and the main aspects of the CPEC program. He said that various companies of the world, even the World Bank has been showing a very deep interest in the development and work that is being done under the project of CPEC. He also said that CPEC is the only biggest chance that this country has of the industrialization and development.
Khalid Mansoor, while throwing a light on the necessity of this project in front of the press, stated that our country faced a huge power shortage in 2013 that resulted in a loss of 2-2.5 GDP, so under the umbrella of the CPEC 17000 MW of electricity was planned to be added to the system.
He also said that the viability of the ML1 was seen to be costing 6.8 billion dollars by the Pakistani officials whereas the cost calculated under the project was 9.2 billion dollars.
Mr. Mansoor cleared up the reason for the delays in the project by saying that there has been a major hurdle of the insurance of Chinese loans by China export and credit Insurance Corporation which is why the pipeline and construction have been experiencing a major steadiness. He was formally a member of the delegation that the Chinese government put forward which was said to be involving a total of 53 billion dollar investments. 5300 MW energy transmission systems have already been installed under the project.
In the reply to a question by a journalist, Mr Mansoor said that interest has been shown by a couple of Chinese companies in the Quaid e Azam solar project Bahawalpur which will add a total of 1000MW electricity to the system.
He said that the special economic zones are a key to attract a huge amount of foreign investments and these are the main focus of the project right now. The year of 2025 will be the time of a boost in the economic and industrial development and manufacturing in the country which will definitely increase the betterment of the lifestyle of people on a major scale. Until 2030 long term projects and sustainable economic growth will be seen in the region in which, CPEC project will play a basic role. A couple of conferences and meetings are also being set up in the near future for the investors and business personnel to interact and communicate about the development among themselves.
He further illustrated that a number of international companies are also looking forward to getting the know how of the project in order to invest for the betterment of themselves and the country. The World Bank has also contacted the government personnel to organize a meeting on the topic of infrastructure projects.
He concluded by saying that CPEC has created huge opportunities for the government to further increase the development in the infrastructure and industrial department but the sinosure has been causing delays, which will surely be dealt with soon.
