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The projects involved are part of the multi-billion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Plan – the most ambitious part of the BIS, which aims to connect Asia and Europe along the way. old silk road, reported the Financial Times. The CPEC, launched in 2015, is a network of road, rail and energy projects linking the resource-rich Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region to the strategic port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea. Prime Minister Khan, elected on a platform to fight corruption and transparency, had in the past criticized former imprisoned Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for the lack of transparency and corruption in CPEC projects.
Khan is committed to publishing details of existing CPEC contracts whose details have remained secret. "The previous government badly negotiated with China on the CPEC – they did not do their homework properly and did not negotiate properly, so they gave a lot," Abdul Razak Dawood, the PM's adviser on trade, textiles, industry and production and investment, said the British newspaper. "Chinese companies have benefited from tax breaks, many breaks and an unfair advantage in Pakistan, this is one of the things we are looking at because it is not just that Pakistani companies are disadvantaged, "he said.
PM Khan has set up a nine-member committee to evaluate the CPEC projects and the committee is expected to meet for the first time this week, said Dawood, who sits on the new committee. The committee "will think through the CPEC – all the benefits and responsibilities," he said. "I think we should put everything on hold for a year so that we can act together," he said. "Maybe we can stretch the CPEC over a period of about five years," said Dawood, a prominent businessman.
Finance Minister Asad Umar has promised to bring transparency to CPEC projects. "Several other Khan government officials and advisers agreed that extending the terms of the CPEC loans and spreading the projects over a longer period of time was the preferred option, rather than the outright cancellation," he said. newspaper.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi traveled to Islamabad over the weekend as reports on Beijing's uneasiness about how the new Pakistani government would invest $ 50 billion in various projects CPEC. Addressing the press on Saturday, Wang said the CPEC "has not imposed a debt burden" in Pakistan. "… When these projects are completed, they will generate huge economic benefits."
Pakistan's second reflection follows other recent setbacks for BRI, the animal project of Chinese President Xi Jinping. Governments in Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and elsewhere have already expressed reservations about the onerous conditions of Chinese BIS loans and investments.
Pakistan is facing a financial crisis and must decide in the coming weeks whether it should turn to the IMF for its 13th bailout plan in three decades. Umar and Dawood both said Pakistan would be careful not to offend Beijing as it takes a closer look at the CPEC deals signed over the past five years, the paper said. "We do not intend to handle this process like Mahathir (Mohamad)," Umar said, referring to the new Malaysian prime minister who warned against the risk of "neocolonialism" Chinese.
