Foreign entrepreneurs: Gwadar Expo to provide more business opportunities: Chinese official

Chinese Counselor Jiang Han Friday said the first-ever two-day Gwadar Expo-2018, scheduled to start from January 29 in Balochistan, would help provide more business opportunities to foreign entrepreneurs under China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Addressing a news conference here, he said the exhibition would provide an opportunity for Chinese and Pakistani businessmen to learn more about opportunities under the CPEC. "This two-day conference and exhibition will highlight achievements of the companies already working on the CPEC related projects, besides providing detailed information about opportunities for industrial cooperation between Chinese and Pakistani businessmen," he said.
In the exhibition, the counselor said, around 5,000 companies from various countries had applied to set up 150 booths to showcase their products. He said as many as 18 booths had been allocated to local companies free of cost. "We are confident that participants will support this conference and the exhibition will provide a unique opportunity to deepen business ties between Pakistani and Chinese companies" he added.
To a question, he said the main objective of the Expo was to highlight the significance of Gwadar and promote and Special Economic Zones as emerging business hub. He said the Expo would help create maximum awareness about the full scope of Gwadar projects, adding, "The expo will provide a platform of interaction between local and foreign business entrepreneurs."
Jiang Han said the Gwadar Port had three multifunctional berths which could accommodate two 50,000 ton vessels simultaneously including 5 STS cranes, 400 reefer container allocations and the stack yard of 500,000 square meters. He said the port could handle containers and other goods including bulk-cargo general cargo and RORO. He said presently seafood containers from Pakistan's western coast area could be exported through Gwadar Port to China, Middle East and other regions. He said Gwadar Port was now connecting Karachi by marine high coast way and correcting Punjab and Sindh Province with M-8 highway.
He said Gwadar Free Zone would be built adjacent to Gwadar Port. The South Area of Free Zone (phase-II) will develop a commercial logistics zone with the leading functions of commodity exhibition, transit and distribution relying on the existing port as well as fishery processing. He said Gwadar airport would be biggest as compared to Karachi. He said road infrastructure had been completed, adding Pakistan China Friendship schools was providing education facilities to 150 local children and efforts were on to increase the number of students to 500. He said storage of 220 million gallon water had been made. "We are providing one million gallon clean drinking water to local," he added.
Responding to a question, he said, "We are not facing any security issue in Gwadar."