‘CPEC is Chinese vote of confidence on Pakistan’
Islamabad
May 25, 2021
Islamabad:Initiation of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) at an economically challenging time for Pakistan is a Chinese vote of confidence to Pakistan, said Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed, chairperson, Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Senator Syed was speaking at a webinar commemorating 70 years of Pak-China friendship organised here by Institute of Regional Studies (IRS). The senator opined that CPEC had already proven to be a success story. He said that Pak-China relations were built on a strong foundation of trust and complementarity of interests.
Commenting on the Sino-US relations, he said that US policy towards China had become more strident despite the change of government in Washington. He specifically referred to the proposed Strategic Competition Bill, which, if passed by the US Congress, would appropriate $300 million annually to counter Chinese global influence. He termed it as
National
May 25, 2021
Islamabad: Initiation of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) at an economically challenging time for Pakistan is a Chinese vote of confidence to Pakistan, said Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed, chairperson, Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Senator Syed was speaking at a webinar commemorating 70 years of Pak-China friendship organised here by Institute of Regional Studies (IRS). The senator opined that CPEC had already proven to be a success story. He said that Pak-China relations were built on a strong foundation of trust and complementarity of interests.
Commenting on the Sino-US relations, he said that US policy towards China had become more strident despite the change of government in Washington. He specifically referred to the proposed Strategic Competition Bill, which, if passed by the US Congress, would appropriate $300 million annually to counter Chinese global influence. He termed it as “a recipe for a new cold war.”
‘CPEC not a debt trap’
Islamabad
March 12, 2021
Islamabad: China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is not a debt trap as all projects in the energy sector are investments and loans constitute only a small proportion of the overall CPEC portfolio, said Dr Ishrat Hussain, adviser to the Prime Minister on Institutional Reforms and Austerity.
Dr Ishrat was speaking at a seminar on ‘Upscaling the economic activities of CPEC: opportunities and challenges,’organised by Institute of Regional Studies here.
Dr Ishrat said that the Chinese loans were on concessional rates of 2.34 per cent. He observed that completed CPEC energy projects had already added 5,320 MW to the power generation capacity in Pakistan with an investment of $7.9 billion. He added that a capacity of 4,440 MW would be added through an investment of another $9.55 billion. He said that the total tally of all projects under CPEC was around $52 billion. He added that plans for upgrading the transmission and distri