TIL Desk/World/Islamabad/ Pakistan on Monday rejected a media report that Prime Minister Imran Khan’s newly elected government plans to renegotiate the agreements reached under China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and said the country remains committed to the successful implementation of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
A report quoted Advisor on Commerce Abdul Razzak Dawood as saying that the multi-billion CPEC had put local companies at a disadvantage and that parts of the flagship project can be renegotiated or even frozen for a year. The CPEC, launched in 2015, is a planned network of roads, railways and energy projects linking China’s resource-rich Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region with Pakistan’s strategic Gwadar Port on the Arabian Sea. It is a part of the BRI.
Dawood’s reported interview came a day after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi concluded his three-day official. During his stay in Pakistan, Wang met the country’s top leadership, including the prime minister. The Pakistan Foreign Office (FO) said that during the meetings, Pakistani leadership conveyed that the CPEC was a national priority for the government and ‘Pakistan remains committed to the successful implementation of CPEC’.
