Pakistan awaits China’s consent to wind up CPEC Authority

Islamabad: Pakistan has sought China’s consent to go ahead with Islamabad’s decision to abolish the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) Authority as it effectively stands dysfunctional.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif gave the approval to abolish the CPEC Authority last week but directed the Planning Ministry to contact China and only make the decision official once Beijing gives its consent.

“This is in the interest of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that the authority should be dissolved to ensure fast implementation of its projects,” Planning and Development Minister Ahsan Iqbal shared with the media, citing the meeting chaired by the PM.

The PM’s decision came on the basis of a report that the planning and development ministry had moved two months ago to wrap up the body that had remained controversial since its inception.

The CPEC Authority, established through an ordinance in 2019, was aimed at accelerating the pace of CPEC-related activities, finding new drivers of growth, unlocking the potential of interlinked production networks and global value chains through regional and global connectivity.

The US $ 60 billion CPEC project, launched in 2015 which connects Gwadar Port in Pakistan’s Balochistan with China’s Xinjiang province, is the flagship project of China’s ambitious multi-billion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Pakistan’s new government led by Sharif was of the view that the Authority was a “redundant organization” with a huge waste of resources which has thwarted speedy implementation of the CPEC.

Ahsan Iqbal maintained that PM Shehbaz Sharif had instructed that China should first be taken into confidence before going ahead with the move to abolish the authority so as to ensure that the strategic ally should not be left with the impression that Pakistan was rolling back CPEC.

He underlined that the CPEC Authority Act would be repealed once the Chinese authorities give their consent. The decision to wind up the CPEC Authority is in line with the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-(Nawaz)’s) policy that was never in favour of establishing a parallel set-up.

Iqbal contended that the CPEC Authority had become an obstruction in the fast implementation of the projects because of the breakdown of the decision-making chain. The planning and development ministry would now play a facilitator role.

The minister elaborated that the government would restore the old institutional arrangement that helped the swift implementation of CPEC projects between 2014 to 2018. He also said the CPEC Secretariat would be revived in the planning and development ministry.

Last month, the government had decided that the CPEC Support Project would be strengthened. The Centre of Excellence for CPEC would be transferred back to the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE).

The BRI was launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping when he came to power in 2013. It aims to link Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Gulf region, Africa and Europe with a network of land and sea routes.