Regional connectivity: Gwadar Port to be important platform: Chinese scholar

Gwadar Port is an extremely important platform to extend China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) westward to a more distant region and becomes an important platform for regional connectivity. At the same time, the construction speed of Gwadar Port determines the development speed of Pakistan as a whole. Therefore, there is a need to further speed up the construction of Gwadar Port and make it "Shenzhen of Pakistan".

These remarks were shared by a visiting professor at Southwest University of Political Science and Law, Cheng Xizhong, in his article published by China Economic Net.

Since December 1st, the proportion of zero tariff commodities between China and Pakistan will gradually increase from 35% to 75%, thus substantially raising the level of trade liberalization. Trade liberalization is a development trend, which has both advantages and disadvantages.

"In my opinion, the advantages are primary. First, it is conducive for the introduction of advanced technology and management experience. Second, it is conducive for promoting reform and improving international competitiveness. Third, it is conducive for the vast number of consumers to get cheap and high-quality products", he wrote in his article. China is an active promoter of trade liberalization, especially to increase the export of goods by friendly neighboring countries to China; it has adopted many preferential policies to gradually reduce the trade deficit of these countries with China. It is worth mentioning that recently India has announced its withdrawal from the negotiation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). Negotiations on the agreement began in 2013 and RCEP will soon be signed. After the signing, 15 countries including all ASEAN countries, as well as China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, will form the world's largest free trade zone. The announcement of India's withdrawal shows that India does not have the strength and courage to compete freely and fairly with the above-mentioned 15 countries.

It also shows that India has finally decided to protect its poor industry and inefficient agriculture. That means India is now protecting its backwardness, which is very unfavorable to India in the long run. "China's reform and opening up began in Shenzhen. At that time, we had a saying `Shenzhen speed', which means that China's development speed is very fast.

At that time, there was a modern high-rise with one floor built in less than five days on average. In the early 1980s, Shenzhen was just a small fishing village. After about 25 years of development, it became a modern city, which led to the rapid economic development of the whole country.

The construction of Gwadar Port began at the beginning of this century and it has been nearly 20 years now.

The urban development has not taken its shape yet. Although the port is navigable, the scale of material imports and exports is very limited. Therefore, there is a need to further speed up the construction of Gwadar Port.

Copyright Associated Press of Pakistan, 2019