Landlocked Xinjiang feasts on fresh deep-sea fish from Gwadar

XINJIANG: More than 2 tons of seafood straight from the Indian Ocean hit dining tables around Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China's furthest inland region, on May 20.

The seafood was incredibly fresh, as only 34 hours elapsed between the time it was caught in Pakistan's Gwadar Port to its arrival Xinjiang by air, according to a report in People’s Daily.

The 16 varieties of fish--including lobsters and red and black groupers---parachuted in as part of a seafood exposition in the city of Karamay, coordinated by a Xinjiang fishing company that invested 510 million RMB in the Gwadar Special Economic Zone, built in cooperation with China.

“Gwadar’s quarantine and customs departments offered a fast channel for the seafood,” explained Ma Jinglu, a manager at Xinjiang Yufei International Fishing Company. He also said the a direct rail and sea freight service from Gwadar to Xinjiang’s capital city of Urumqi started service in April 2016, and those routes have greatly facilitated the transportation of his company’s products.

In 2015, it was announced that Gwadar would be developed as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) for a cost of $1.62 billion, with the aim of linking northern Pakistan and western China to the deep-water port. Construction on the Gwadar Special Economic Zone began in June 2016. It is being built on a 2,292-acre site adjacent to Gwadar's port.

The Gwadar Port is a flagship CPEC project under the Belt and Road Initiative. Nadeem Javaid, who advises Pakistan government and works closely on the CPEC program, told Reuters that the Gwadar-Xinjiang corridor should be operational from June of next year, and Pakistan expects up to 4 percent of global trade to pass through the corridor by 2020.