Cargo Business Newswire

Thursday, April 23, 2015

China to invest $46B to link Pakistan’s Gwadar port to Xinjiang region

Pakistan announced that Chinese President Xi Jinping is scheduled to visit the nation on April 20 to launch energy and infrastructure projects worth $46 billion to generate opportunities for firms hit by slack growth at home.

"The Chinese president will attend a joint session of Parliament and important agreements in various fields will be signed during the visit," Foreign Office spokesperson Tasneem Aslam said.

Xi’s trip is expected to focus on a Pakistan-China Economic Corridor, a prospective $46-billion network of roads, railways and energy projects linking Pakistan’s Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea with

China’s far-western Xinjiang region.

It would shorten the route for China’s energy imports, bypassing the Straits of Malacca between Malaysia and Indonesia, a bottleneck at risk of blockade during wartime.

Also being finalized is a long-discussed plan to sell Pakistan eight Chinese submarines. The deal, worth between $4 billion and $5 billion, according to the press, might be among those signed on the trip.

For more of the Express Tribune story: tribune.com.pk