Yesterdays Brief Recording section marked the end of BR Researchs recent series of interviews that put spotlight on Gwadar. Below is the summarised version of the key findings of those interviews, together with some questions that this column thinks demand some consideration by the CPEC stakeholder community in general and the related government officials in particular.
First off, Rome wasnt built in a day. The development of Gwadar and Gwadar port is a Greenfield project.
The citys current population is and has been stuck around 0.1 million for many years, and the livelihood of this small community mostly revolves mostly around fishing. The population would have grown manifolds by now, had Gwadar not been put on the back burner since 2007. Surely, one cannot expect a small sleepy fishing town to become an industrial port city over a span of few years. Ergo: the critics should hold their horses.
Now in 2017 the story is changing, sans the Gwadar Industrial Estate zone, which has a ghost-town feel to it. A BR Genie tells us that the zone has become a hub of real estate speculation, and a visit to the offices of Gwadar Industrial Estate Development Authority also gives a similar kind of feeling.
However, GIEDAs MD, who was otherwise shy of sharing GIEDAs revenue details on account of being a secret, says he is bent on reforming the zone; although the red flag is that he only shared plans but no targets or timelines. Our sense is that he will have to do more to change GIEDAs perception as a real estate speculation hub. But such goes the story of industrial zones; the Lasbela industrial zone is still not fully completed, whereas many other industrial zones across Pakistan also have a ghost-town feel to them.
As for Gwadar city and the port, things havent changed as drastically as the hype, but they are changing nevertheless. Some of the leadership that this column has met, and whose interviews have been published, have a clear sense of direction. The table provides a summary of the plans, targets and timelines. It would be important to keep in mind that these timelines are not all written in stone, but they serve as a good reference point to assess progress and to question those responsible for the progress.
Recall also that it took the Chinese ten years to make the Shenzhen Port operational and thirty years to make the port city fully developed. The Gwadar Port Authority (GPA) chairman says that the Chinese are foreseeing Gwadar port to be operational in five years and achieve the Shenzhen-level city and port development within ten to fifteen years, provided that the basic infrastructure is in place and there is a strong and consistent investment policy for Gwadar.
Those conditions, however, are most critical. So far much work has been pending around the periphery of the port. Gwadars new airport is nothing but a piece of barren land with fences around it; plans of additional power supply of 300 MW havent been rolled out as yet, though Gwadar Development Authority chairman says that work on both these projects will begin soon. The million dollar question, however, is whether the infrastructure projects will continue at the required pace or whether they will be abandoned or put on a slow burner.
In light of these delays and risks, Pakistan needs to mull over a having a Charter of CPEC. Second, in order to expedite the infrastructural projects whose implementation slows down due to coordination issues, the government may want to consider revising the administrative status of Gwadar, something which the GPA chairman has also argued for.
Gwadar is only the second city Pakistan will ever build from ground zero. And any investor coming to Gwadar has to go to dozens of authorities for different licenses and registrations. This is unlike China, where the citys mayor leads the economic development and his office manages everything via a one-window operation. Whether Gwadar should be getting a treatment of a special administrative region with a strong mayor, or whether it should be made a provincial autonomous region, these are the kind of questions that hopefully politicians and political economy gurus will pick up.
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