Pakistan Admits Missing Economic Gains from China-Pakistan Economic Corridor
Islamabad acknowledges $60 billion project yielded minimal economic gains.
Pakistan’s Minister for Planning and Development, Ahsan Iqbal, has publicly acknowledged that the country failed to capitalise on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), describing it as a missed opportunity to transform the national economy. Speaking at the DataFest Conference, Iqbal stated that Pakistan “dropped the catch of the game-changer CPEC” and attributed the setback primarily to political controversies during the tenure of former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government, which he said damaged investor confidence.
Iqbal held the previous Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) administration responsible for creating an environment that led Chinese investors to withdraw or delay commitments, despite Beijing’s sustained financial support during Pakistan’s economic difficulties. The minister’s remarks represent an unusual admission from a senior cabinet member that the strategic objectives of the $60 billion initiative have not been realised.
Launched in 2015 as a flagship component of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, CPEC was designed to link Gwadar Port in Balochistan with Xinjiang through extensive infrastructure development and establish Special Economic Zones to promote industrialisation and export growth. Official records indicate that substantive progress effectively ceased after the seventh meeting of the Joint Cooperation Committee in 2017, with subsequent high-level engagements producing limited tangible outcomes.
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The critical second phase, which aimed at industrial relocation and rapid export expansion, has failed to materialise. Recent Joint Cooperation Committee discussions revealed that Special Economic Zones still lack adequate infrastructure and incentives, prompting repeated assurances from the Pakistani side to improve the business environment and provide greater facilitation for Chinese enterprises.
More than ten years after its inception, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor has delivered certain infrastructure benefits but fallen far short of its broader transformative goals, underscoring persistent challenges in implementation and investor confidence within one of the Belt and Road Initiative’s most prominent corridors.
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