{"id":1314,"date":"2016-11-25T18:42:32","date_gmt":"2016-11-25T18:42:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cpectrade.co.uk\/?p=1314"},"modified":"2016-11-25T18:42:32","modified_gmt":"2016-11-25T18:42:32","slug":"china-about-to-start-35-billion-of-silk-road-plan-in-pakistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cpectrade.co.uk\/?p=1314","title":{"rendered":"China about to start $35 billion of Silk Road plan in Pakistan"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Pakistan<\/a>

Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif is seeking to boost growth to the highest about a decade after China announced its investment plans in the nation . Photo: Getty images<\/p><\/div>\n

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London\/Karachi:<\/b>\u00a0More than three quarters of $46 billion of planned Chinese-led investment in Pakistan will be implemented by next year as part of the world\u2019s second-largest economy\u2019s flagship Silk Road plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cOut of this $46 billion, we have been so far able to energize about $35 billion,\u201d Pakistan\u2019s planning, development and reforms minister Ahsan Iqbal said in an interview in London. \u201cBy energizing I mean these are projects either in advanced implementation or in a stage of financially closing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pakistan\u2019s prime minister Nawaz Sharif is seeking to boost growth to the highest in about a decade after China announced its investment plans in the nation of about 190 million people last year. It\u2019s part of an initiative the Chinese government calls \u201cOne Belt, One Road\u201d that aims to revive trade across Central Asia and into Europe via a network of railways, ports and highways.<\/p>\n

About $11 billion has been allocated to infrastructure projects, including roads, with concessional loans provided at about 2% with payback in 20 years, along with a five-year grace period, said Iqbal, who is heading the investment plans in Pakistan. The rest has been earmarked for generating electricity, with about 11,000 megawatts expected to be added by 2018 to end the nation\u2019s chronic power outages.<\/p>\n

In September, Iqbal said a further $8 billion would be provided by China and the Asian Development Bank to update Pakistan\u2019s dilapidated railway network.<\/p>\n

Iqbal said the government also expects to privatize state-owned power distribution companies after the 2018 elections, when Sharif will go to the polls again in a bid for a successive term. Pakistan\u2019s growth will rise to 5.5% in the current year ending June helped by these investments and between 5.5% to 6% next year, he said.<\/p>\n

Iqbal played down security concerns that have plagued the investment plans after recent attacks in the restive southwestern province of Balochistan, which is the final road toward the flagship port of Gwadar. The first consignment of Chinese goods was shipped from the port this month after trucks from China made the 3,000 kilometers journey from western Xinjiang province.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have raised a special force of about 9,000-plus personnel that has been specially created to augment the present security apparatus in the country,\u201d he said. \u201cThis force will directly support, it is the sole responsibility of the Pakistani government to provide security.\u201d\u00a0Bloomberg<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

London\/Karachi:\u00a0More than three quarters of $46 billion of planned Chinese-led investment in Pakistan will be implemented by next year as part of the world\u2019s second-largest economy\u2019s flagship Silk Road plan. \u201cOut of this $46 billion, we have been so far able to energize about $35 billion,\u201d Pakistan\u2019s planning, development and reforms minister Ahsan Iqbal said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1315,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,1,14,35,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-news","category-international","category-law-order","category-local-news","category-politics","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpectrade.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpectrade.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpectrade.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpectrade.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpectrade.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1314"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cpectrade.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1317,"href":"https:\/\/cpectrade.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314\/revisions\/1317"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpectrade.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpectrade.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpectrade.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpectrade.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}