On Friday, Minister for Planning, Development, and Special Initiatives Asad Umar said that major work of the CPEC projects was completed during the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) government.

While addressing a press conference, he said in the first phase of CPEC, two major sectors- power and infrastructure, were under the main focus, “power projects with an installed capacity of 3,340 MW were completed during the previous government while 5,864 MW of power projects were being completed during the current government’s tenure,” he added.

He said work on another 1824 MW project had also been started recently that would be completed after the tenure of the current government. Asad Umar said the PML-N government totally ignored the Western Corridor that was the heart of CPEC.

He said Gwadar-Hoshab road was completed by the previous government while the Hakla-Dera Ismail Khan motorway was initiated by the PML-N government who completed 42% of the project while the rest was completed by the current government.

He informed that the current government had completed 67% of the work of the 110 km Khuzda-Basima road while it would also complete the rest work soon. Likewise, the 146 km Hoshab-Awaran road project had also been approved and the contractor had been mobilized.

He said the Hoshab-Awaran project is an integral part of the CPEC central alignment that connects the port city of Gwadar with Sindh.

He said when the current government took over, not a single Special Economic Zone (SEZ) under CPEC was operational but now two SEZs Allama Iqbal Industrial Zone in Faisalabad and Rashakai in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were operational while another SEZ named Dhabeji would also be functional soon once the Sindh government has selected the contractor for the SEZ.

The Chinese would help Pakistani farmers in increasing the per acre yield of the crops, he concluded.