Gwadar Port, Free Zone To Generate $10 bn Economic Activity
CPEC Authority Chairman Lt-Gen (retd) Asim Saleem Bajwa said on Monday, the Gwadar Port and Gwadar Free Zone, once fully operational, would create roughly $10 billion in economic activity each year.
“A lot of manufacturing and trade operations will start soon when the Gwadar Free Zone is completed; cargoes will flow, and trans-shipment operations will increase,” he remarked to the media after inspecting the Gwadar Port and other projects under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) plan.
He said, “We will continue to monitor the development work in Gwadar till all the projects become fully operational.” Asim Bajwa said the port’s infrastructural work had been completed by the China Port Holding Company at the cost of around $300 million, and all four berths were fully operational.
He stated that approximately 67,000 metric tonnes of goods had been processed at the port in the recent several months, the majority of which were consignments under the Afghan Transit Trade Agreement and were thereafter carried to Afghanistan.
A ship carrying 8,000 cubic feet of liquefied petroleum gas was scheduled to arrive at the port on Tuesday, while another ship carrying 24,000 MT of DAP (diammonium phosphate) fertilizer and feed cargo for Afghanistan was scheduled to arrive from Australia, he added. Asim Bajwa stated that they have built the port handling capacity, as well as the Customs system, to help investors and merchants.
“Now our full emphasis is to increase the port traffic for which we are pursuing the logistic companies to establish their offices in the city,” he said. As regards the Gwadar Port Free Zone, Asim Bajwa said its first phase spreading over 60 acres of land had already been completed, with 47 enterprises registered.
Six factories had been completed three of them were now fully operational, while six others were under construction. He said that over the last three years, the port and free zone had generated around 1,200 direct employment with an additional 12,000 people employed to develop support infrastructure.
According to Asim Bajwa, the second phase of the Gwadar Port Free Zone would include 2,221 acres of land and will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Imran Khan. He stated that the China Port Holding Company has already secured an investor for the second phase, which would require around 1,600 acres of land. The investor had promised a direct investment of $3 billion in a single industry that would generate 30,000 jobs.