A consultative meeting of Pakistan’s senior political leaders decided on Friday to form a steering committee headed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to oversee the implementation of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project.
It was decided that all the four provincial chief ministers would be included in the committee, which would meet every three months to review the progress of the mega project.
All participants reaffirmed their complete support to the project and agreed that the new institutional framework will be able to better accommodate the regional concerns in future, an official statement said.
The prime minster’s office said the meeting was convened to “share information with and address the reservations of political parties and government of Khyber Pakhunkhwa regarding the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor,” the statement said.
A cell will be created in the ministry of planning, Ddevelopment and reform for coordination and information sharing with the provinces, the statement said.
Recently China and Pakistan signed a financing agreement on a coal power project located in the Thar Coalfield in Pakistan’s Sindh province.
The project will cost in excess of $2bn, including the exploitation of a 3.8mn-tonne coal mine and the construction of a 660,000-kilowatt power station near the mine.
China will contribute $800mn to the financing, while the Pakistani partners will provide $500mns, mainly through China Development Bank and Habib Bank.
The project is expected to be completed by the end of 2017, and it will be the first such project in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
The corridor aims to connect Pakistan with China via a network of highways, railways and pipelines.
The corridor will be a 3,000-km network of roads, railways and energy infrastructure, between the ports of Gwadar in Pakistan and Kashgar in Xinjiang. It was established to help lift Pakistan out of its economic slumber and boost growth for the Chinese border economy.