Pakistan’s planning minister denies slow pace of work on CPEC projects

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s planning minister Asad Umar denied on Friday the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects had slowed down, reported the local media, though he added that security threats had increased in the country due to the opposition of various international forces to the initiative.
Umar’s statement came only a day after the country’s newly appointed chairman of the CPEC authority, Khalid Mansoor, told the Senate Standing Committee on Planning and Development that Chinese companies were not satisfied with the pace of work on the multi-billion-dollar economic corridor that seeks to connect Pakistan’s Gwadar port with the Chinese province of Xinjiang.
The committee meeting was chaired by an opposition politician, Saleem Mandviwalla, who said the Chinese ambassador had complained to him that the government had “destroyed” CPEC and “no work was done [on the corridor] in the past three years.”
“Umar rejected the perception that CPEC had slowed down over the past three years and claimed the major work on the corridor projects had been completed during the tenure of the current PTI [Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf] government,” reported Dawn newspaper.
The planning minister said the economic corridor was facing security challenges on “an elevated level,” adding that the country’s top civilian and military leadership had taken effective measures and shared their details with the Chinese authorities.
He maintained that Pakistani politicians should be careful while discussing the project, saying it was not right to describe it as “closed down, finished or destroyed.”
The planning minister noted his government had completed several infrastructure and power projects with the Chinese.
He said that the previous Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz administration had ignored the western corridor at the heart of CPEC which was taken up by the current government.
Umar also maintained that the PTI administration had largely operationalized three industrial zones under the corridor project.
Last month, a suicide bomb attack on a motorcade carrying Chinese personnel injured one Chinese national and killed two local children. The incident took place on the East Bay Expressway in the southern port of Gwadar.
In July, a suicide bomber attacked a bus carrying workers to a dam construction site in northern Pakistan, killing 13 people, including nine Chinese nationals.
Pakistan’s foreign minister said Pakistani Taliban militants known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) were behind that attack. The TTP has denied it was involved.