Efforts afoot to sabotage CPEC projects, says Asad Umar

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar on Wednesday said that efforts are underway to fail the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects, ARY News reported.

Reacting to a recent report of an American Think Tank on China Pakistan Economic Corridor at a news conference in Islamabad, he said details about the corridor project have been shared on multiple occasions including at the level of parliament. He categorically stated that the CPEC related projects are transparent and carry no hidden debt.

Asad Umar clarified that the Chinese debt is only twenty-six percent of the total external liabilities of Pakistan and added that the country has a debt servicing challenge which we are meeting but clarified that they do not have any problem with the Chinese debt.

The minister said the terms of debt financing for power projects executed under the CPEC are actually more favorable than the non-CPEC financing which had come in from other multilateral agencies.

He said the loans which were taken by the government were also at the concessional rate of two percent. He said China has also provided grants to execute different CPEC related projects. A vocational training institute has been established in Gwadar with the Chinese grant.

Asad Umar said fake news are being spread against the corridor project in order to create a wrong impression among the people.

The minister for planning said most of the projects under the CPEC have been completed in the stipulated period. He said both Pakistan and China welcome investment from other countries in this project. He said Pakistan will support transforming this bilateral corridor into a regional corridor project.