@Joe Shearer ,
@hellfire , GB as a region has always had pleasant relations with China or the present day China especially people close to the GB border. China has never laid claim on GB, or even the Tibetian angle applied in this case makes no sense to me. People of GB, or especially Hunza have been trading with Chinese from a long time ago. Give me some time to dig something up and maybe i can post it later here. People to people contact is quite impressive. Actually take a lot of pride in what we have done for displaced Uighur folks in GB and now they are permanently settled in GB and are happy with their lives while they can go back.
Secondly, it is beyond delusional to think that CPEC will not benefit Pakistan or it's just a Chinese project aimed to help the Chinese. It will be more beneficial to us compared to the Chinese but the Chinese are getting a fair deal out of their investment, all in all it's a good investment.
I believe it will be more beneficial to Balochistan and GB more than any region. GB will see a new era of human development that it has never seen before. Imagine travelling to Kashghar from Islamabad in a friggin bullet train. Better infrastructure will boost the tourism industry to a new level, the numbers are only getting better.
PS: it used to take us 5-6 hours to get to Gilgit from Chilas and now it takes us a smooth drive of 3-4 hours. Life is only getting better.
Please read this piece, would recommend it.
http://www.dawn.com/news/1236159/ch...idor-a-boon-for-the-economy-a-bane-for-locals
Read this quote:
Hopes and doubts
With the CPEC passing through Gilgit-Baltistan, Salman hopes the route will open business opportunities for the region's traders.
Diverting fruit to China will be more profitable, for one, will be more profitable.
“We can double our sales and profits if we can sell to China where cherries are very popular," he said.
Cherries grown in Hunza are popular exports to China. —Photo by Ghulam Rasool
Currently, he ships his produce to Dubai through air-cargo. "It would be faster and cheaper if we could send it by road to China via Xinjiang as we can get a one-year border pass to travel within that border," Salman explained.
According to the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Gilgit-Baltistan produces over 100,000 metric tonnes of fresh apricots annually. While there are no official surveys, Zulfiqar Momin, who heads Farm House Pvt Ltd., which exports fresh and dried fruits to the Middle East, estimates that Gilgit-Baltistan produces up to 4,000 tonnes of cherries and up to 20,000 tonnes of apples.
“All fruits grown in Gilgit-Baltistan are organic with no pesticides used,” Momin said.
An apple in Hunza, grown organically. —Photo by Ghulam Rasool
The CPEC, some believe, will also boost tourism in the 73,000 square km region. The region is considered to be a mountaineer’s paradise, since it is home to five of the ‘eight-thousanders’ (peaks above 8,000 metres), as well as more than 50 mountains over 7,000 metres. It is also home to the world’s second highest peak K2 and the Nanga Parbat.
The mighty Nanga Parbat soars high in the first light of the sun. —Photo by Ghulam Rasool
But development consultant Izhar Hunzai, who also belongs to the area, has no such expectations. The CPEC, he feels, is nothing more than a “black hole” as far as the people of the region are concerned.
“The government has not engaged with us; we do not know exactly how much or what Gilgit-Baltistan’s role will be in CPEC or how we will benefit from it,” he said.
While both Pakistan and China will benefit through this region, he feels his people will be left “selling eggs”.
“I fear when the region opens up, it will give short shrift to the locals," he added.
Also read: China’s new silk road: What’s in it for Pakistan?
Land of opportunities
But it does not necessarily have to be this way. According to Hunzai, the region has infinite water resources to tap.
“By building hydro power projects, Pakistan can sell clean energy to China and even use it for itself, the development consultant said. "If Bhutan can sell to India, why can’t we sell to China?” Hunzai poted out that the Chinese already taking the country’s national grid to its border province.
It made little sense to him that the Pakistan government wanted to buy 1,000MW of hydropower from Tajikistan under the Central Asia South Asia (CASA-1000) project and construct an expensive 750km transmission line when the resource was right there in the country’s own backyard.
Attabad Lake in Gojal in Upper Hunza. —Photo by Ghulam Rasool
However, the government is almost ready to revive the Diamer-Bhasha dam, a gravity dam on the Indus river in Gilgit-Baltistan, in the second phase of CPEC. Once completed, it is estimated to generate 4,500MW of electricity, besides serving as a huge water reservoir for the country.
Hunzai also lamented the government’s decision of buying discarded coal powered plants from China and using imported coal to run it. Doing some quick calculations on the back-of-the-envelope, he asked, “Why produce 22 cents per unit electricity from imported fuel and sell it to the people at a subsidised rate of 15 cents? Why not make electricity from hydropower which would cost just 0.02 cents?”
According to the ADB, Gilgit-Baltistan has the potential to produce nearly 50,000MW of energy. Just Bunji Dam, a run-of-the-river project that the ADB has invested in, has the capacity to generate up to 7,100MW electricity when completed.
Naltar lake, 40 kms from Gilgit. —Photo by Ghulam Rasool
The government is not wilfully neglecting the region, countered long-time hydropower advocate Tahir Dhindsa of the Islamabad-based Sustainable Development Policy Institute. Instead, he feels the problem is more about the profits that middlemen make. It is all about the “kickbacks and commissions” that one can earn quickly from “cheap and carbon-spewing coal power plants”, compared to almost none from hydropower projects that can take up to 10 years or more.
Explore: Paris climate summit: An opportunity missed for Pakistan
“The future is renewables as has been reiterated in Paris at the COP21 and Pakistan should seriously be thinking about its future course of action,” he said.
Demographic shift
There is also the fear that the CPEC may lead to widespread displacement of the locals. “Of the 73,000 square kilometres, cultivable land is just 1pc," Hunzai explained. "If that is also swallowed by rich investors from outside, we will become a minority and economically subservient once there will be no farmland or orchards left to earn our livelihood from."
A local shepherd tending to his sheep near Khaplu. —Photo by Ghulam Rasool
He is not the only one. Given the secrecy and confusion surrounding the project, its design and its budgetary allocation, three of Pakistan’s four provinces recently held a well attended All Parties Conference (APC) and vented their anger at the central government for its opaqueness regarding the share of investments for each of the provinces.
“CPEC is not the problem. It has just highlighted the imbalance in provinces with the largest one, Punjab, being seen as favoured specially as far as investments on road infrastructure are concerned and fuelling bitterness among the rest of the three provinces,” rued Vaqar Zakaria, an energy expert heading Hagler Bailley.
Trying to address the concerns of the provinces soon after the APC, federal minister for planning, Ahsan Iqbal, who heads the Planning Commission of Pakistan, said in a television interview that this was not a time for scoring political points by making the project controversial. CPEC, he said, was not a project to benefit a party or a government as was being portrayed by politicians and the media but to the entire country.
A panoramic view of Hunza valley. —Photo by Ghulam Rasool
Of the US $46bn, between $35bn to $38bn were earmarked for the energy sector– of this, $11.6bnwill be invested in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, $11.5bn in Sindh, $7.1bn in Balochistan and $6.9bn in Punjab.
Beijing has urged Islamabad to resolve the internal differences on the CPEC to create favourable working conditions for the project to roll out smoothly.
The hanging bridge of Hussaini. —Photo by Ghulam Rasool
I think it is beyond delusional to this that CPEC will not benefit Pakistan. I have only touches the social sector of things and how it will transform lives of the locals, think about the economic aspect of things...
https://defence.pk/threads/collection-at-gwadar-exceeds-customs-duty-target.437897/
And how it has transformed our lives as locals...Actually we are still in hardware mode, lots to be done yet. Please read between the lines.
@shimshali , other than better transportation and all...i'll tell you what else it has done for the locals, my father has been able to open an office in Gilgit, Gwadar and Kashghar, and guess how he was able to attract investors? yes CPEC did that. Now the biggest office is in Gilgit, it is not fully functional. Once we get into full-swing we will do a lot just for the city and the locals. This is only one example i am quoting, GB will soon become a hot-spot....We need to develop basic human needs first.
@Gufi ,
@That Guy ,
@HRK ,
@Blue Marlin ,
@Nilgiri ,
@PARIKRAMA , anyone who would be interested.
PS: our aim should be to follow this model and this example:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...islamists-poverty-pollution-and-10411618.html