ISLAMABAD: Pakistan said on Thursday that to the multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) had entered its second phase with focus on industrialization and agriculture.

CPEC has seen Beijing pledge over $60 billion for infrastructure projects in Pakistan, central to China’s wider Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to develop land and sea trade routes in Asia and beyond.

“CPEC had entered its second phase with vigorous focus on industrialization, agriculture and socio-economic development,” Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Sohail Mahmood said, as quoted in a statement by the Foreign Office.

“In the first phase of CPEC, we have made major advancement in the domain of energy and infrastructure,” he said during Thursday’s meeting of CPEC Joint Working Group in Urumqi, China.

The meeting was co-chaired by Mahmood and China’s deputy foreign minister, Luo Zhaohui.

Mahmood expressed hope that with development of special economic zones under CPEC, the second phase of the project would “rejuvenate Pakistan’s process of industrialization and further spur economic development.”

He added that there is “complete national consensus” on CPEC’s indispensability for Pakistan’s development efforts and that both Islamabad and Beijing would welcome third party participation in this “fiscally responsible project.”

Infrastructure projects under CPEC have been underway since 2013. 

Gwadar port, in the southwestern province of Balochistan, is the crown jewel of CPEC and the plan is to turn the port city into a trans-shipment hub and megaport to be built alongside special economic zones from which export-focused industries will ship goods worldwide. A web of energy pipelines, roads and rail links will connect Gwadar to China’s western regions.