Pakistan’s Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal has publicly admitted that the country failed to take advantage of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), acknowledging that poor governance, political infighting, and misplaced priorities have derailed what was once called a “game-changer” for Pakistan’s economy.
Speaking at the DataFest Conference organised by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Tuesday, Iqbal said the country’s leadership “dropped the catch of the game-changer CPEC,” a rare and candid admission from a senior member of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s cabinet. His remarks, reported by The Express Tribune, reflect growing frustration within Pakistan’s ruling circles over the massive losses and lost opportunities tied to the stalled project.
Worth an estimated USD 60 billion, CPEC was launched as the flagship project of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), envisioned to link China’s Xinjiang province to Pakistan’s Gwadar Port in Balochistan. The project promised to transform Pakistan into a regional trade hub through roads, railways, energy networks, and industrial corridors. But nearly a decade after its launch, progress has largely ground to a halt, leaving Pakistan burdened with mounting debt and unfinished infrastructure.
Iqbal directly blamed the previous Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government for sabotaging the initiative and driving away Chinese investors. “China stood by Pakistan in difficult times, but political elements tried to scandalise their investment and forced them to leave,” he said.
He accused the former government of using anti-China rhetoric for political gain, which he said “scared off investors” and severely damaged Pakistan’s reputation as a reliable partner. According to The Express Tribune, Chinese companies gradually withdrew from several major projects, citing bureaucratic delays, corruption, and growing security concerns, especially in Balochistan.
Since 2018, CPEC’s progress has slowed sharply. Fourteen meetings of the CPEC Joint Cooperation Committee (JCC), the top decision-making body for the corridor, have been held so far, but officials privately admit that “substantive progress” was only achieved until the seventh session in 2017. After that, the pace of implementation has been minimal, with little to show beyond half-finished energy plants and idle construction zones.
While some short-term gains came through power generation and road construction, Pakistan failed to move into CPEC’s second phase, which was supposed to focus on industrialisation and export-led growth. The plan to relocate Chinese industries to Pakistan, creating jobs and boosting exports, has largely collapsed due to Islamabad’s inability to build functional Special Economic Zones (SEZs) or provide stable conditions for investors.
Even during the most recent JCC meeting, both sides agreed that Pakistan needed to “operationalise SEZs” and build supporting infrastructure to make them viable. But Islamabad’s financial crisis and chronic political instability continue to stall any real progress.
The Pakistani government has now assured Beijing that it remains committed to reviving CPEC, promising to “improve the investment climate” and “introduce facilitation measures” for both domestic and foreign investors. However, analysts note that these assurances have been repeated for years without visible results.
For China, CPEC was meant to showcase its Belt and Road vision. For Pakistan, it was supposed to be a lifeline. Instead, the project today stands as a symbol of mismanagement, corruption, and political chaos — a stark reminder of how Pakistan squandered its biggest economic opportunity in decades.
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