Will Gwadar Grow to Become a Major Metropolis Like Shenzhen?

RiazHaq

Senator (1k+ posts)
Will Gwadar Grow to Become a Major Metropolis Like Shenzhen?
"We believe Gwadar is following in the footsteps of Shenzhen which represented a historic population rise, from a population of 30,000 in 1980 to 11 million people in 2017. Gwadar is poised to see massive population growth due to incoming industries, and we expect this to be one of the most strategic cities in South Asia." Hao-Yeh Chang, China Pak Investments Corporation


Gwadar: The Next Shenzhen?


Gwadar is booming. It's being called the next Shenzhen by some and the next Hong Kong by others as an emerging new port city in the region to rival Dubai. Land prices in Gwadar are skyrocketing, according to media reports. Gwadar Airport air traffic growth of 73% was the fastest of all airports in Pakistan where overall air traffic grew by 23% last year, according to Anna Aero publication. A new international airport is now being built in Gwadar to handle soaring passenger and cargo traffic.

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Gwadar Property Boom:


The volume of Gwadar property searches surged 14-fold on Pakistan’s largest real estate database, Zameen.com, between 2014 and 2016, up from a prior rate of a few hundred a month. “It’s like a gold rush,” said Chief Executive Zeeshan Ali Khan to an Express Tribune newspaper reporter. “Anyone who is interested in real estate, be it an investor or a developer, is eyeing Gwadar.”


Chinese private investment company China Pak Investment Corporation has recently announced it is acquiring 3.6 million square foot International Port City project in Gwadar. It plans to develop a $150 million gated community to handle the influx of 500,000 Chinese professionals expected in Gwadar by 2022.


China Pak Investment Announcement:


On October 20, 2017, Pakistan's Geo TV news reported that China Pak Investment Company plans to increase its commitment to invest $500 million in Gwadar in the first phase of a project aimed at building homes for around 500,000 incoming Chinese professionals expected in Gwadar by 2023. An earlier September 29, 2017 press release by China Pak Investment Corporation said as follows:


"The final master plan for China Pak Hills is currently being refined in Hong Kong, and will feature a range of state-of-the-art amenities including an open-air shopping boulevard; indoor shopping mall; restaurants and eateries; an international school and nursery; six community parks; indoor and outdoor sports facilities including tennis courts and a resident's gymnasium; a water desalination plant and recycling centre. China Pak Hills will also be home to the Gwadar Financial District, catering to the growing financial sector and adding much needed A Grade office space to Gwadar's growing market."


Gwadar Port Development:


Gwadar port's planned capacity when it is completed will be 300 to 400 million tons of cargo annually. It is comparable to the capacity of all of India's ports combined annual capacity of 500 million tons of cargo today. It is far larger than the 10-12 million tons cargo handling capacity planned for Chabahar.


To put Gwadar's scale in perspective, let's compare it with the largest US port of Long Beach which handles 80 million tons of cargo, about a quarter of what Gwadar will handle upon completion of the project. Gawadar port will be capable of handling the world's largest container ships and massive oil tankers.


Gawadar port is being built in Pakistan by the Chinese as part of the ambitious $46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that will eventually serve as Hong Kong West for growing Chinese trade with the Middle East and Europe. CPEC will also enable Pakistan to bypass Afghanistan to trade with Central Asia through China across China's borders with Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.


India's Strong Opposition:


Pakistan suspects that India's real objective in Afghanistan and Iran is to locate its intelligence agents under the cover of Chabahar port construction workers to sabotage China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and support Baloch insurgency to destabilize Pakistan. These suspicions were strengthened when Indian spy Kulbhushan Yadav, operating under the fake name Husain Mubarak Patel, was arrested in Balochistan in March, 2016. Yadav confessed he was operating as an undercover RAW agent from his base in Chabahar, Iran. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made no secret of his strong opposition to CPEC and his support for Baloch insurgents.


Chinese Commitment to Pakistan:


Unlike US-Pakistan ties that have been essentially of a transactional nature, Pakistan-China relationship appears to truly strategic. A recent book "The China Pakistan Axis: Asia's New Geopolitics" by American policy analyst Andrew Small quotes a top Chinese official as saying to his American counterparts that "Pakistan is China's Israel". Earlier, in 2011, some news reports quoted Chinese officials as warning that "any attack on Pakistan would be construed as an attack on China". Growing Chinese investment commitments in Pakistan now exceed $100 billion, a further indication of the importance China attaches to Pakistan as one of its closest allies.


Summary:


China-Pakistan ties appear to be truly strategic. The strength of Chinese commitment to Pakistan is increasing with growing investments in China-Pakistan Economic Corridor related projects. It is now highly visible in terms of the influx of the Chinese money and citizens into Pakistan. China's actions on the ground reinforce the credibility of Chinese officials' reported quotes describing Pakistan as "China's Israel" and warnings to the United States that "any attack on Pakistan would be construed as an attack on China".


http://www.riazhaq.com/2017/10/will-gwadar-grow-to-become-major.html


 
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RiazHaq

Senator (1k+ posts)
Dubai and Gwadar: the silent economic war in the Gulf of Oman
TARIQ AL-SHAMMARI 14 August 2017
The expansion of Gwadar port in Pakistan is a game-changing venture that would reformulate the economic agenda of the entire region.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/north-africa-west-asia/tariq-al-shammari/dubai-and-gwadar-silent-economic-war-in-gulf-of-oman



Many economic analysts believe that Gwadar is another Dubai emerging on the world’s map. The controversial issue here is that an economically powerful Gwadar threatens the strategic influence of Dubai in the region. This challenging point, recently, has caused a silent economic war in the Gulf of Oman between two groups of countries. Pakistan, China and Qatar on one side. India and the UAE on the other.

Dubai is located on the southeast coast of the Persian Gulf. It is the largest and most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Dubai has invested in infrastructure to overcome its poor natural resources and become a global business, trade and tourism hub. Thus, Dubai has emerged as a multi-cultural city and enjoys to receive millions of leisure and business visitors each year from around the world.

The major revenue of Dubai comes from tourism, aviation, real estate, and financial services. Large construction projects, iconic skyscrapers and sports events are other means of income for Dubai. The world’s tallest building called the Burj Khalifa is located in this emirate.

It is clear that the area where Dubai is located can offer a distinct geographical advantage to businesses. There are two major commercial ports in Dubai, Port Rashid and Port Jebel Ali. The latter one is the biggest man-made harbor in the world and the biggest Middle East port. It is home to over 5,000 companies from 120 countries.

However, Gwadar port is a serious rival to Dubai. Gwadar port is considered a strategic location, giving China and Central Asia access to the Gulf region and the Middle East. Gwadar port will become the main sea gate for Central Asia. It will also become easier to send products from Xinjiang and central Asian countries to other regions. “The corridor will help reduce transport time for goods from Gwadar port to western China and central Asian regions by about 60 or 70 per cent,” Vice Premier of China Ms Liu Yandong said.

On 10 April 2016, talking to The Washington Post, Zhang Baozhong, chairman of China Overseas Port Holding Company said that his company could spend a total of $4.5 billion on roads, power, hotels and other infrastructure for the industrial zone of Gwadar. He also added that the company also plans to build an international airport and power plant for Gwadar.

‘Dubai Investment Forum’, a platform aiming to persuade local and international investors will be held in October under the patronage of Crown Prince of Dubai Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Undoubtedly, this Forum is so crucial for the future of Dubai to continue its development as now it has a strong rival named Gwadar.

India is another key player in this regional battle. The Chabahar-Gwadar adversary is due to the fact that the ports are at a distance of about 72 km from each other. Both India and Pakistan have been attempting to undermine each other in the region and the development of the two ports is bound to add to the animosity.
 

RiazHaq

Senator (1k+ posts)
Karachi Port and Port Qasim will grow but still not be able to handle the biggest container ships and the trade volume Gwadar deep sea port is planned for.

Gwadar port's planned capacity when it is completed will be 300 to 400 million tons of cargo annually. It is comparable to the capacity of all of India's ports combined annual capacity of 500 million tons of cargo today.

To put Gwadar's scale in perspective, let's compare it with the largest US port of Long Beach which handles 80 million tons of cargo, about a quarter of what Gwadar will handle upon completion of the project. Gawadar port will be capable of handling the world's largest container ships and massive oil tankers.

http://www.riazhaq.com/2016/05/comparing-irans-chabahar-and-pakistans.html
 

RiazHaq

Senator (1k+ posts)
#China Turning #Pakistan's #Gwadar Port Into Regional Giant. #CPEC

https://www.voanews.com/a/pakistan-china-gwadar-port/4084175.html

An unprecedented Chinese financial and construction effort is rapidly developing Pakistan’s strategically located Arabian Sea port of Gwadar into one of the world’s largest transit and transshipment cargo facilities.

The deep water port lies at the convergence of three of the most commercially important regions of the world, the oil-rich Middle East, Central Asia, and South Asia.

Beijing is developing Gwadar as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, known as CPEC. The two countries launched the 15-year joint mega project in 2015 when President Xi Jinping visited Islamabad.

Under the cooperation deal construction or improvement of highways, railways, pipelines, power plants, communications and industrial zones is underway in Pakistan with an initially estimated Chinese investment of $46 billion.

The aim is to link Gwadar to landlocked western China, including its Muslim-majority Xinjiang region, giving it access to a shorter and secure route through Pakistan to global trade. The port will also provide the shortest route to landlocked Central Asian countries, including Afghanistan, through transit trade and offering transshipment facilities.

Chinese fuel imports and trading cargo will be loaded on trucks and ferried to and from Xinjiang through the Karakoram Highway, snaking past snow-caped peaks in northern Pakistan.

‘Qualitative change’

Gwadar will be able to handle about one million tons of cargo annually by the end of the year. Officials anticipate that with expansion plans under way, the port will become South Asia’s biggest shipping center within five years, with a yearly capacity of handling 13-million tons of cargo. And by 2030, they say, it will be capable of handling up to 400-million tons of cargo annually.

China has in recent months begun calling CPEC the flagship project of its global Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI. The “qualitative change” from an experimental project to flagship project underscores the importance Beijing attaches to CPEC, said Zhao Lijian, the deputy chief of mission at the Chinese embassy in Islamabad.

Out of 39 “early harvest” projects under CPEC, 19 have since been completed or are under construction with a Chinese investment of about $18.5 billion, Lijian told VOA. The progress makes it the fastest developing of all of at least six BRI’s corridors China plans to establish, added the Chinese diplomat.
 

RiazHaq

Senator (1k+ posts)
Govt denies rumours of $500 million Chinese investment in Gwadar real estate

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2017/10/23/govt-denies-rumours-of-500-million-chinese-investment-in-gwadar-real-estate/

The federal government on Monday warned the general public not to pay any heed to the rumours about a heavy investment, allegedly made by a Chinese in the real estate business in Gwadar, and asked the investors not to invest in any phoney company which might be involved in a massive fraud.

In an official statement, the spokesman of Ministry of Planning, Development and Reform cautioned the public at large not to pay heed towards an alleged investment of US $500 million in Gwadar’s real estate business under the name of ‘China Pak Hills’.

Apropos news item – “Chinese company invests $500 million in Gwadar residential project” – published in a section of the press, has claimed that China Pak Hills has invested US $500 million in Gwadar’s real estate business. It is to put on record that Gwadar Development Authority (GDA) has not issued any No Objection Certificate (NOC) to a housing project named as ‘China Pak Hills’, said an official handout by China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) Secretariat at Ministry of Planning, Development and Reform.

“The report is baseless and highly exaggerated. Even GDA has no information about $500m Chinese investment in the housing sector,” said the spokesperson.

He further stated that the news item presented a highly exaggerated scenario about Chinese professionals shifting to Gwadar by 2023. “The newspaper should have contacted the ministry of planning before publishing such news item having such content,” the statement added.
 

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