Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif has expressed his pleasure over the reopening of Khunjerab Pass and termed it a booster move for Pakistan’s trade with iron brother China. According to the Premier, the resumption of the Khunjrab pass would help increase bilateral trade between Pakistan and China and will further expedite the pace of work on China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Prime Minister Shehbaz appreciated the Chinese love and cooperation for the people of Pakistan and envisioned the CPEC as a gift of progress and prosperity for the people as well as the whole region.
China and Pakistan are first-door neighbors and all-weather friends, who enjoyed the economic and strategic dividends of their all-weather association over the past seven and a half decades. Historically, the two sides’ ambition for cooperation and engagement had always created a positive momentum in their economic engagement and military collaboration which further intensified brotherly sentiments between the two nations. Presently, Pakistan and China have close cooperation in diverse fields including trade and energy, education, science, and technology, defense and security, agriculture and space, and IT as well as political and legal matters, while the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is the flagship project of Sino-Pak strategic friendship that emboldens the tremendous prospects for regional connectivity, bilateral and transnational trade across East, South, and Western Asia in the future. Pak-China trade has increased many folds after the initiation of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Although the Pak-China trade has always been in favor of Beijing, however, there had been an uptrend in the export of metals, sports goods, and Pakistani products to Beijing in recent years which merits attention by the Pakistani authorities and manufacturers to increase those opportunities in the future.
Khanjrab Pass, the historic and sole border crossing between China and Pakistan was shut down by the Chinese government in late 2019 due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country. The crucial trade route remained closed for almost more than three years and was recently reopened by the Chinese Authorities for normal trade and tourism between the two countries. According to experts, the increasing exports from Pakistan to China is a good sign for both countries, which clearly signifies that the deep-rooted trade and commerce momentum has been generated through the CPEC and both nations can equally benefit from the long-term dividends of their joint venture. The reopening of the historic trade route would provide full access to Pakistani traders and businesses to the world’s second-largest economy and will lead to tremendous opportunities for boosting bilateral trade, exchange of expertise, and technical cooperation between the two nations in the coming months.
Pakistan’s peculiar geography is very germane to China, and the global macroeconomic landscape, while Pakistan could shape into a food basket for China if the country ensures sustainability and predictability in its policies vis-a-vis Chinese current and future investment plans and the quest for regional connectivity and broader economic integration in the region and beyond. Realistically, the successive Pakistani governments had largely been influenced by western propaganda and American persuasion and employed a back-and-forth policy in dealing with China. Pakistan’s oscillatory policy seriously estranged Beijing, which is currently seeking an alternative to Pakistan to implement its economic vision in the greater Asian region. In fact, the CPEC is a gift of progress and prosperity that has been vested by the nature to the people of the region yet there is a need for national resilience, political will, and sincere efforts to realize full dividends attached to CPEC in the shape of operationalization of Special Economic Zones (SEZs), bilateral and transnational trade, energy cooperation and greater economic integration in the region. In the current economic meltdown, the CPEC is the only endeavor that promises the revival of a fragile Pakistani economy and offers equal financial opportunities to all nations in the region. Thus the incumbent government must ramp up its work for the full implementation of the second phase of the CPEC to avert the economic crisis and reenergize the national economy in the days to come.
