China To Sign Deal On Developing Pakistan’s Gwadar Port Area

Gwadar Marine Service Ltd, will look at the port’s operation by providing allied services and Gwadar Freezone Company will look after affairs of the free zone area by developing and providing allied facilities to the investment companies in the free zone area.

It will improve the liberalization of the service trade of China-Pakistan FTA, with easier financing for enterprises and ensuring the smooth running of major governmental projects such as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the MOC said.

A delegation led by Wang Xiaotao, Deputy Secretary General of China’s National Development and Reform Commission, signed a lease agreement with the Pakistani government. “As for China, it will gain from cheaper oil imports from the Middle East”, he said.

Gwadar port, located 540km southwest of Karachi, was built in 2007 with technical help from Beijing as well as Chinese financial assistance of a few $248mn.

Pakistan and China today kicked off their ambitious United States dollars 46 billion economic corridor project with Beijing acquiring over 2,000 acres of land in restive Balochistan to develop the strategic Gwadar port, providing the Communist-giant an opening to the Arabian Sea.

However, Mohan Guruswamy, head of the New Delhi-based think tank Centre for Policy Alternatives, defended the project yesterday.

“This is an economic project and India has no concern over Chinese cooperation”, he said.

“Concerns arise if there are defence related matters”, he said.

The Pakistani economy will gain from the large number of processing firms that will move to the Gwadar port. It will also boost exports from Pakistan.

China is also building a road network to link the zone to the airport and a sea port, and the provincial government will provide the land according to the requirements, he said.

A few Baluch nationalists have accused the Chinese of conspiring with the Pakistani elite to plunder the province’s resources while doing little to share profits and create jobs for local people.