Pakistan, China have emphasised need to further enhance scope of CPEC: minister

ISLAMABAD: Minister of Planning, Development and Reform Makhdum Khusro Bakhtiar on Friday said Pakistan and China had decided that the scope of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) needed to be further broadened.          

“We have already expanded the scope of the CPEC in Joint Coordination Committee,” he said in an interview with local Chinese TV channel in Beijing.

To a query about opening up of the CPEC to other countries, he said there were a couple of projects which could attract trilateral or collateral investments with different countries or two or three different parties.

Read More: Pakistan, China ink MoU to further expand cooperation under CPEC

Khusro Bakhtiar said security of the Chinese personnel working on CPEC projects was a priority of the government and the government had raised a special security division of almost more than 12,000 to 13,000 people in this connection.

Pakistan and China on Thursday signed memorandum of understanding (MoU) to further expand cooperation in diverse fields during the JCC meeting of the CPEC.

Both the sides have agreed to form a framework for socio-economic progress and decided to enhance economic ties between the two countries.

The meeting review progress on different ongoing projects in Gwadar and decided to expend cooperation in the fields of agriculture, industry and economics,