ISLAMABAD: As protests continued on Tuesday in the Pakistani port city of Gwadar over a lack of basic facilities for residents of the area, China, which has heavily invested in building the port and other development schemes, said it was willing to work with Pakistan to ensure its projects delivered benefits for locals.
The aim for China and Pakistan has been for Gwadar – located on the Arabian Sea near Iran and the mouth of the Persian Gulf – to become a regional commercial, industrial and shipping hub, as part of the ambitious China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project.
The corridor is designed to give China a shorter, more secure trading route, via Pakistan, to the Middle East and beyond, while also boosting Pakistan’s economy.
But locals of the city have long complained that Chinese presence and investment in the area has done little to improve their lives, particularly with regards to water scarcity.
Speaking at a weekly press briefing on Monday, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin said CPEC had long focused on “people’s livelihood and well-being and [on] benefiting the local people.”
“China is ready to work with Pakistan to advance the high-quality development of CPEC so as to deliver more benefits to the local people,” he said. “The Gwadar Port, a leading project of CPEC, focuses on development and people’s livelihood.”
Wang said the China-Pakistan Gwadar Faqeer Middle School, a vocational training institute in Gwadar and the China-Pakistan Fraternity Emergency Care Center in Gwadar, which had been completed, had “played important roles in and made China’s contributions to creating education opportunities, improving employment skills and responding to COVID-19 for the benefit of the local people.”
He reiterated that China was ready to work with Pakistan to “jointly advance high-quality development of CPEC, build and operate all CPEC projects including the Gwadar Port well, play a more positive part in improving people’s livelihood in both countries, and build an even closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future in the new era.”