Pakistan proposes to include climate change sector in CPEC

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Monday proposed the inclusion of “Water Resources Management & Climate Change” as new area of cooperation under the framework of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) for efficient water resources management, development of climate resilient infrastructure.

The proposal was made in the third meeting of Joint Working Group (JWG) between the government of Pakistan and People’s Republic of China held to review the long-term plan of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

The meeting was co-chaired by Secretary Ministry of Planning Development & Special Initiatives Syed Zafar Ali Shah and Pan Jiang through video conference with interval of three years.

Director General of the National Development & Reforms Commission of China, representatives of Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Aviation, Finance, Economic Affairs, Gwadar Port Authority, Gwadar Development Authority as well as representatives of their counterparts in China also attended the meeting.

The meeting reviewed and summarized the implementation status of the CPEC projects and deliberated upon the future course of action with regard to implementation of the CPEC long-term plan.

Both sides expressed satisfaction with steady progress made on various projects and agreed to start deepening the work done and then execution of the second phase of CPEC, which is focused on Agriculture Cooperation, Industrial Cooperation, Science & Technology, Information Technology and Socio-Economic Development.

It was noted that since the last meeting of JWG on Planning and CPEC Long Term Plan held in November, 2019 a number of developments have taken place. Globally this period remained marred by COVID-19 pandemic preventing free movement of people between countries and regions. Despite these restrictions and difficulties posed by the pandemic, substantial progress has been achieved.

Both sides noted that out of 26 CPEC-Early Harvest Projects, 14 projects including Karachi-Lahore Motorway: Multan-Sukkur Section, KKH (Phase-II) upgradation & reconstruction from Raikot to Islamabad via Mansehra, Eastbay Expressway, 1320 MW Port Qasim Power Plant, 1320MW Sahiwal Power Plant and 720 MW Karot HPP, etc. have been completed, while currently 5 projects including New Gwadar International Airport and 873 MW Suki Kinari HPP etc are under execution.

The meeting was also informed that the Government of Pakistan was actively implementing various projects, in close collaboration with the Provincial Governments to ensure efficient and time completion with a view to view to make the CPEC a roaring success and directly monitoring the progress of these projects on a monthly basis.

The two sides resolved to redouble the efforts to tap the full potential of cooperation as well as to make sure that the population of Pakistan fully benefit from these projects by utilizing the massive opportunities being created in various sectors.