ICCI pins high hopes on Chinese president’s visit

Islamabad: Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Muzzamil Hussain Sabri has said that the two-day visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Pakistan would offer promising prospects and prove a landmark event for the country as it would bring the two counties further closers and create plenty of business opportunities for their entrepreneurs.
Talking to this correspondent on Friday in his office, he said the launch of $46 billion worth of energy and infrastructure projects during Chinese President’s visit will start a new era of economic development in Pakistan and generate plenty of investment opportunities for businessmen of both countries.
He said that planned 2000 miles China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) envisages construction of a network of roads, railways and energy projects linking Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea with China’s far-western Xinjiang region and hoped that the realisation of this corridor would not only prove to be an engine of growth for Pakistan, it would also become fate changer for both countries and driver for regional connectivity.
Muzzamil Hussain Sabri said that energy deficit was a national issue of Pakistan due to which business and industry have badly suffered. However, he was optimistic that addition of 10,400 MW of electricity by 2018 and 6,600 MW after 2018 under the CPEC projects would go a long way in ensuring uninterrupted power supply to local industry leading to enhanced productivity, trade and exports for the country.
He said the businessmen have pinned lot of hopes for new business prospects from the corridor as China has promised to invest about
$34 billion in energy projects and nearly $ 12 billion in infrastructure. He was of
the view that the materialization of CPEC has the
potential to create a huge economic bloc having a strong market of about 3 billion consumers.
ICCI president said that business community was ready to fully cooperate with the government in such initiatives so that our country could come out of problems and could march on a fast track of sustainable economic growth to uplift the living standards of its people.