ISLAMABAD, 1 April — Will Pakistan’s new international sea port at Gwadar, at the hub of Gulf-Central Asia, bring economic prosperity or add to the political tensions in the region? The plan is to make Gwadar international investors’ — and traders’ paradise.
Will it happen soon? This is a billion dollar question that only the future can answer. But, the events and start-up of the project make an interesting reading. While Islamabad and the entire region was in the grip of US war over Afghanistan, and focus of international attention, President Pervez Musharraf has signed up with China to build a new deep water international sea port on the Gulf of Oman and only a stone’s through away from the Straits of Hormuz, as well as Iranian ports of Chah Bahar and Bundar Abbas. The short distance between Pakistan’s Mekran Coast — Gwadar and the Gulf States, is daily plied by dozens of small and big boats, ferrying people and cargo at an extremely low cost.
If everyone plays right, Gwadar will bring prosperity to most countries in the energy-rich Gulf, mineral, oil and gas-rich Central Asia, and South Asian region home to a fifth of the world population that is the new economic engine, and even farther to the north and east.
Economists, analysts and senior diplomats agree on this point, and the huge potential of the entire region. But, located as it is at the cross-roads of Middle East, Central Asia and East Asia, Pakistan — and region’s friends and foes will watch it with a hawk’s eye, both for its strategic and economic dimensions. Gen. Musharraf has just broken the ground for the $248 million first phase of the Gwadar sea port. While doing so, he said, “we all are witness to the making of history today.” “Prime Minister Zhu Rongji, took personal interest in agreeing to help Pakistan build this mega project and in providing finances and technical expertise,” he also said expressing his special gratitude to the Chinese leadership.
Chinese Vice Premier Wu Bangguo who represented his country at the ground breaking said, his country has sent “the best team of experts, builders and planners to construct the port.” China Harbor Construction Corporation (CHCC) will build the port for which Beijing is providing $198 million, and Islamabad $50 million for the first phase. It will be completed within three years. Pakistani Communications Minister Javed Ashraf Qazi says port development will take place in two phases. Phase one comprises construction of three multipurpose berths with 12.5 meter depth each, capable to accommodate vessels of upto 250,000 DWD. In phase two the port will have 21 more berths, including three dedicated container terminals.
Various Pakistani governments kept on wishing, and forgetting, to undertake the Gwadar deep sea port for the last 30 years. Its prospects seemed to have dimmed further as a result of the US war over Afghanistan. But things miraculously took a positive turn in November, soon after Taleban had been defeated in Afghanistan. Beijing and Islamabad signed an agreement to go ahead with Gwadar on March 16, confirming how significant it had become economically, strategically and politically. Where, after all is Gwadar located? It is a small fishermen’s town at the western-most tip of Pakistan’s Mekran Coast that is washed by the Arabian Sea. It is part of Baluchistan province, Pakistan’s poorest region that needs to be developed and opened up — Gwadar being one shot in its arm.
If everything goes well, and Islamabad and Beijing are known, in the past to have completed formidable projects like the mighty Karakoram Highway that connects Pakistani port of Karachi with China’ western region of Sinkiang Xinjiang formerly Sinkiang, galloping over the Himalayas, Gwadar will become a shipping, transit, industrial and commercial hub that none of its 50,000 population ever had dreamt.
