ISLAMABAD  -  Ashraf Orakzai, director of utilities at Rashakai Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, starts his work early in the morning no matter how tough the weather is since he considers his job crucial for the country’s future.

Orakzai, who belongs to KP and has been working at Rashakai SEZ and the in­dustrial park, part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) framework, since mid-2022, is highly motivated to­wards the development of this project as it’s going to generate a lot of employ­ment opportunities along with high-scale investment and economic activity not just in his own province but the entire country. Launched in 2013, CPEC, a flag­ship project of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, is a corridor linking the Gwadar Port in Balochistan province with Kashgar in northwest China’s Xin­jiang Uygur Autonomous Region, which highlights energy, transport, and indus­trial cooperation in the first phase, while in the new phase expands to fields of ag­riculture and livelihood, among others.

“As a Pakistani, we all want our coun­try to develop and progress, and such projects, I believe, would play a defining role in economic development and spe­cifically in poverty alleviation,” he said. The SEZ has a complete infrastructure of more than a dozen individual build­ings, 7km of roads, and a variety of com­plete network facilities, including water, drainage, power supply, and communi­cation. Invested and implemented by China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC), the project is divided into three phases, covering a total area of around 1,000 acres. The first phase, covering an area of 247 acres, was implemented from June 2021 to March 2023, in which over 60 percent of the land has been leased out, mostly, to Pakistani and Chi­nese enterprises. There are 10 different types of industries under construction in the zone, including steel, pharmaceu­tical, surgical and mobile accessories factories, Orakzai told Xinhua.

Rashakai, as CPEC’s first SEZ, is posi­tioned to vigorously promote the next step of industrial cooperation between Pakistan and China under CPEC, said Wu Yuxing, project manager of CRBC at Rashakai. All infrastructural facilities are designed according to Chinese stan­dards, including the establishment of a complete operation support team, he said. “At the same time, the overall scale of the park and subsequent operation and maintenance, and services for the entire industrial chain of enterprises are also top quality,” he added. The zone is located around 90km from the feder­al capital, Islamabad, and nearly 60km from Peshawar, which brings the two major cities within reach of one to two hours. A motorway, railway network and Afghan port are also within its vicin­ity. Orakzai said one of the things specif­ically focused at Rashakai was the ease of doing business, adding that “we have a one-window operation facility with all the relevant departments as well as a facilitation center.” Talking to Xinhua, Javed Iqbal Khattak, chief executive offi­cer of KP Economic Zones Development and Management Company, a partner of Rashakai SEZ’s management, said that four new industries, including medi­cine, sulphuric acid, electric cables and pharmaceuticals, are expected to start operations this year.

Negotiations have almost been final­ized with an electric bike and scooter manufacturing company of young en­gineers as well, and they are also ex­pected to join later on, he said. These industries will act as a catalyst to attract others, Khattak added. He said the SEZ focuses on promoting export-oriented and import-substitution industries, which would impact Pakistan’s overall economy. “As per the agreement, 80 per­cent of the employment will be given to the locals, which will be a big boost to the development of KP,” Khattak said. The local industry will get the chance to learn the best practices in the manufac­turing sector from the well-established multi-national corporations, he said, adding that KP’s local vendor industry, most importantly, will flourish with the development of Rashakai.

SEZs are significant for industrial de­velopment in a country in today’s world, said Syed Wajid Bukhari, CEO of the Pak­istan Association of Large Steel Produc­ers, which has member companies of the Pakistan Business Council and the coun­try’s largest private-sector businesses and conglomerates including multi­nationals. Rashakai is very important symbolically as well because its success would send a good message to foreign investors, he said. “This development will also be a positive signal for CPEC since industrial development was one of the main targets of CPEC for which mas­sive infrastructure was developed in its first phase,” according to Bukhari.