By South China Morning Post | Created at 2024-09-23 07:44:06 | Updated at 2024-09-30 09:38:04
1 week ago
Pakistan is aiming to kickstart trade at the Chinese-operated Arabian Sea port of Gwadar and transform the barely operational facility into a transshipment hub for landlocked Central Asian states, but analysts say logistical challenges and regional instability could undermine its ambitions.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s cabinet set the plan in motion on September 12 by ordering federal agencies to direct half of the commodities they import annually – amounting to hundreds of thousands of tonnes of fertilisers, sugar and wheat grain – through Gwadar port.
The day before, Pakistan’s Commerce Minister Jamal Kamal Khan informed China’s Commerce Vice-Minister Ling Jion of Islamabad’s plans to operationalise Gwadar port, in a meeting on the sidelines of a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) ministerial conference in Islamabad.
By doing so, Pakistan was “trying to kill three birds with one stone”, said Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute of the Wilson Centre, a Washington think tank.
In addition to generating more revenue for its struggling economy, Islamabad was seeking to show Beijing that it was “committed to operationalising a critical Chinese investment”, he said.
