As China enjoys Pak seafood, India feels Beijing’s presence

BEIJING: The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is changing life in China’s Northwest Xinjiang Uyghur region, bringing something special to the region: seafood from Pakistan.

This little bonus is being shipped by container trucks through the corridor, which currently accounts for two percent of the total trade between the two countries; and more goods are expected to come through CPEC from the Middle East and Africa.

That’s certainly a good return for China’s enormous investment in the project, which some experts call the Marshall Plan for Pakistan. “The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has been described as a Marshall Plan for Pakistan,” says Marko Dimitrijevic, author of Frontier Investor. “It is a $51 billion, 15 year project that will ultimately create a 2,000 kilometre highway/railway/pipeline route from Western China to Pakistan’s Gwadar Port, knocking over 10,000 kilometres off the current sea route for Middle Eastern oil to China; a high-speed railway from Karachi to Lahore to Peshawar; and over 26,000 MW of electric generating capacity.”

CPEC is part of China’s ambition to write the rules of the next stage of globalisation and help Beijing sustain growth—a good prospect for investors in Chinese equities, which have been lagging behind those of neighbouring India over the last five-year period.