ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Planning Ahsan Iqbal on Monday downplayed the 100-day plan unveiled by the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) a day earlier.

Addressing a press conference here on Monday, he said Imran Khan should first explain his party’s performance of 1,825 days in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

“KP could not copy Punjab because it requires wisdom which they do not have, as the situation in Peshawar has exposed them when they started constructing Metro Bus, which actually turned the city into ruins,” he said.

The minister said that Pakistan had plunged itself into wrong wars and there was a need to shift the focus from geo-strategic to geo-economics for achieving progress.

He highlighted the decisions of a meeting which reviewed the progress of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) before the end of the PML-N government’s tenure. The Chinese ambassador to Pakistan also attended the meeting.

Says China Aid will finance over $8bn railway line, Karachi Circular Railway and other CPEC projects

Mr Iqbal said that China had recently established a support agency — China Aid — to finance several CPEC projects, including development of railway line ML-1, the Karachi Circular Railway and other projects.

He said the CPEC review meeting considered the Master Plan for Gwadar under which it was projected that the population of the port city would go up from existing slightly over 100,000 to 300,000 by 2025 and to 400,000 by 2035 and would touch two million by 2050.

Regarding ML-1, the minister said Pakistan had sought concessional funding for the construction of over $8 billion railway line from Peshawar to Karachi, but the conversion of the China’s commerce ministry to China Aid caused delay in completion of the project, but now Beijing had assured to expedite the process.

He said the ministries, divisions and departments had been directed to complete feasibility studies and other procedural requirements before the coming general elections so that the next government could resume work of CPEC projects without any further delay.

“We have energised projects worth $30 billion in three years and the figure could have touched $40bn if the PTI sit-ins in 2014 had not wasted one year,” he added.

Regarding establishment of Special Economic Zones (SEZs), Mr Iqbal said that the Board of Investment and other agencies concerned had been directed to analyse incentive packages being offered by Cambodia, Vietnam and other countries so that industries relocated from China could be incentivised.

He said the SEZ in Islamabad would be constructed along the new Islamabad Airport as land in the range of 100,000 acres was not available at one place in the federal capital.

“We have instructed the authorities concerned to construct the SEZ in the jurisdiction of the new airport even outside the Islamabad territory in order to align the cargo with the airport,” he added.

Published in Dawn, May 22nd, 2018