ISLAMABAD – Dr Li Jing Feng, director, Regional Studies and StrategicResearch Centre, Sichuan Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China, hassaid that China asked its state-owned companies to invest in Pakistan andtransfer technology to Pakistan under CPEC.
Dr Li was answering questions at a roundtable on “BCIM-EC & CPEC withinChina’s Belt-and-Road-Initiatives” organised by Institute of RegionalStudies here Monday. Dr Rukhsana Qamber, president of IRS, conducted theproceedings.
Dr Li said that we also train local workers here to start from ground zeroin the journey to value added products. Answering another question, Gawadaris more important than Chabahar port as it is a deep sea port and biggerships cannot dock in the Iranian port.
He observed that Chinese being killed in Pakistan are of extreme concernfor China.Earlier, in his talk, Dr Li focused his discussion on BCIMeconomic corridor and compared it with CPEC. He said that due to Indianreservations, the Bangladesh China India Myanmar Economic Corridor(BCIM-EC) would not be successful although both Bangladesh and Myanmar werein favour of it.
On the other hand, CPEC would be successful for a number of reasons, themain one being the strong understanding and mutual trust that existsbetween Pakistan and China, he said adding that Gawadar is developing andwould ultimately become a developed city. He was also aware of the negativefeelings on CPEC that have been aired in various fora.
Mr Annice Mahmood formerly from Pakistan Institute of Development Economicssaid that like China, Pakistan should export its surplus produce to rectifyits balance of payment deficit. He said that remittances to Pakistan arefrom unskilled workers but still we are getting something.
He said Russia tried to help us stand on our feet but we did not respond.India responded and got the dividend. He said instead of getting profit andpaying back but not much was done to create self-reliance and promote self-sustained growth within the country.