The
floodgates are about to open. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif arrived in Beijing over the weekend
to participate in the One Belt, One
Road summit, and the top item on his agenda is to finalise the Long Term
Plan (LTP) for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. [See next tab for details
on how the plan was made].
Dawn
has acquired exclusive access to the original document, and for the first time
its details are being publicly disclosed here. The plan lays out in detail what
Chinese intentions and priorities are in Pakistan for the next decade and a
half, details that have not been discussed in public thus far.
For
instance, thousands of acres of agricultural land will be leased out to Chinese
enterprises to set up “demonstration projects” in areas ranging from seed
varieties to irrigation technology. A full system of monitoring and
surveillance will be built in cities from Peshawar
to Karachi,
with 24 hour video recordings on roads and busy marketplaces for law and order.
A national fibreoptic backbone will be built for the country not only for
internet traffic, but also terrestrial distribution of broadcast TV, which will
cooperate with Chinese media in the “dissemination of Chinese culture”.
The
plan envisages a deep and broad-based penetration of most sectors of Pakistan’s
economy as well as its society by Chinese enterprises and culture. Its scope
has no precedent in Pakistan’s
history in terms of how far it opens up the domestic economy to participation
by foreign enterprises. In some areas the plan seeks to build on a market
presence already established by Chinese enterprises, eg Haier in household
appliances, ChinaMobile and Huawei in telecommunications and China
Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC) in mining and minerals.
In
other cases, such as textiles and garments, cement and building materials,
fertiliser and agricultural technologies (among others) it calls for building
the infrastructure and a supporting policy environment to facilitate fresh
entry. A key element in this is the creation of industrial parks, or special
economic zones, which “must meet specified conditions, including availability
of water…perfect infrastructure, sufficient supply of energy and the capacity
of self service power”, according to the plan.
But
the main thrust of the plan actually lies in agriculture, contrary to the image
of CPEC as a massive industrial and transport undertaking, involving power
plants and highways. The plan acquires its greatest specificity, and lays out
the largest number of projects and plans for their facilitation, in agriculture.
Courtesy:
Daily Dawn
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