ISLAMABAD: Ashraf Orakzai, director of utilities at Rashakai Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Pakistan’s northwest 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 southwest Pakistan’s 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, 7 km 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. –Agencies
