Pakistan to take up projects for Chinese funding in JCC talks.

Byline: Khaleeq Kiani

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan will take up new projects for Chinese financing and investment to expand the $46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) when officials of the two countries meet here on Nov 6 as part of the Joint Cooperation Committee's (JCC) annual consultations.

Speaking at a joint news conference along with Energy Minister Omar Ayub Khan, Railway Minister Shaikh Rashid Ahmad and Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Petroleum Nadeem Babar, Minister for Planning and Development Makhdum Khusro Bakhtyar said that Pakistan for the first time would formally engage with Chinese authorities during the JCC meetings to start negotiations on $9bn Main Railway Line (ML-1) and D.I. Khan to Zhob Motorway project of the CPEC's western route.

The road project was now the only missing link in the Islamabad to Quetta motorway network which would be completed in about three years, Mr Bakhtyar said.

He said the Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) project would now witness progress as it had been put among the prioritised projects. He said the progress on all these projects suggested that the opposition's allegations of slowing down the CPEC were incorrect.

The other two ministers and the PM's special assistant also spoke about their respective projects in minerals, electricity, petroleum exploration and refining sector.

Ministers explain plans to be discussed with Chinese officials during Joint Cooperation Committee's annual consultations

Mr Bakhtyar said the vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) of China would be taken to Gwadar on Nov 4 soon after his arrival for the inauguration of a 300MW power plant.

He said the CPEC had become a key pillar of Pakistan's economic structure that would be taken to new heights after the upcoming JCC. He parried a question relating to number of additional projects and their estimated costs or the revised size of the CPEC.

In this respect, he said, ML-1 would now become the most important project of the CPEC to replace the obsolete railway track of 1,872km from Karachi to Peshawar. There would be progress in financing commitments on this during the JCC meeting, he added.

On a question whether the internal disagreements among various government stakeholders about cost estimates and various phases of the railway project had been settled, Mr Bakhtyar said the project costs would be finalised after a study to be completed by yet to be appointed international...