Pakistan has invited the Saudi Arabian government on Thursday to consider investing in the key segment project of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in South Asia called the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), as growing concerns over the Islamic country's rising debt levels loom in the near distance.
Following Pakistani's Prime Minister Imran Khan's state visit to Saudi Arabia, Islamabad, through its information ministry, confirmed that the Gulf State has been given with the invitation to become the third player in the offshoot infrastructure project, according to the Asian Times.
The initial details provided over by the ministry, in the person of Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry somehow failed to specify the response from the Saudi kingdom, if indeed it will agree to pour more funding into the Khan government which in itself, has been struggling to stay afloat amidst its accumulating debt.
However, on Thursday, it was further confirmed by the deputy secretary general of the ruling Pakistan party, Tehreek-e-Insaf, through its Twitter account that Islamabad and Riyadh had already signed an agreement which amounts to USD$10 billion.
The China-Pakistan Joint Economic Project
The CPEC entails the ambitious plan of the two allied nations to establish an energy and transportation highway linking the western Chinese region of Xianjiang, all the way to the Arabian Sea. The route inadvertently passes through Pakistan and that makes the Islamic nation a part of the mega-scale, multi-billion infrastructure undertaking.
While the prospect seemed to be appealing to most of Pakistan, there were still those who voiced out their criticisms due to its lack of transparency.
As previously reported on this site, Pakistan's commerce minister Abdul Razak Dawood commented on the collaborative project saying that the contracts were negotiated unfairly by the preceding government. He even went on to propose a suspension of operations for a year.
The finance official, later on, backpedaled on his earlier comments, clarifying that the press might have only misinterpreted his statement.
In the midst of these issues, the Xi Jinping government sent off its top diplomat, Wang Yi, in an effort to clarify the misunderstandings. During the summit, which took place earlier this month, the two countries reaffirmed and reiterated the importance of their cooperation in this corridor project.
It was in this said meeting that the idea of inviting a third-party investor into CPEC was brought forth.
Meanwhile, the earlier cited Business Times report said that Pakistan's army chief General Qamar Jayed Bajma, later on, visited Beijing which served as a signal that the Sino-Pakistan relations have become even stronger than ever.
