ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s planning minister Ahsan Iqbal on Friday urged China to grant Islamabad the same market access enjoyed by Southeast Asian nations, as he called for an export-driven expansion of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
Iqbal was speaking at the 14th session in Beijing of the Joint Coordination Committee (JCC), the top decision-making body steering the CPEC program. Launched in 2015 as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, CPEC is a network of infrastructure, energy and industrial projects worth around $62 billion.
The first phase of CPEC focused on tackling Pakistan’s crippling energy shortages and improving connectivity through new power plants, highways and the development of the deep-sea port of Gwadar. The second phase is expected to shift the focus to industrial cooperation, agriculture, technology and human capital development.
CPEC projects have stalled in recent years due to persistent security threats to Chinese workers and bureaucratic delays, and Islamabad is now seeking to revive momentum under the program's second phase.
“Despite China’s $2 trillion import annually, Pakistan’s exports to China demand barely $3 billion,” Iqbal said. “We seek under CPEC that Pakistan may be given the same market access as ASEAN countries so that we have the same tariff for Pakistani products.”
