Parliamentary Committee on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has discussed the impact of outbreak of coronavirus on the ongoing CPEC projects and invited relevant health authority to its next meeting.
The committee met (in-camera) with Sher Ali Arbab in the chair at the Parliament House Thursday.
The committee discussed the coronavirus spread and ongoing development projects in Gwadar.
The Parliamentary Committee on the CPEC Chairman, Sher Ali Arbab, told Business Recorder that "we discussed the impact of coronavirus on the ongoing development projects."
He said that Chinese citizens arriving from China were kept in quarantine for 14 days.
Arbab said that the development projects might affect to some extent due to coronavirus.
However, he said that "We have called the relevant officials of the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination in the next meeting to discuss latest situation of outbreak of coronavirus."
According to sources, at present the number of Chinese nationals working on different CPEC projects in Pakistan was around 10,000 to 15,000.
Besides CPEC, thousands of other Chinese are residing in Pakistan for business purposes or working on some other projects. A majority of them had left for China in January to celebrate the Chinese New Year with their families.
Sher Ali Arbab said that the committee discussed the recommendations made during its visit in January of development projects. He said that 300MW Power Plants and construction of a hospital at Gwadar would be completed in 30 months. Arbab said that the committee also discussed Karachi Circular Railway Project and ML-I Railway project.
He said that important decision would be taken in the coming Joint Cooperation Committee (JCC) meeting, which would be held in April, 2020. The sources said that raising many questions whether China would send back its workers to resume the ongoing projects or would it delay their return until they finished the mandatory 14-day quarantine period in China.
According to media reports, till 2018 China had already injected a sum of $27 billion in Pakistan for various CPEC projects. Furthermore, an amount of $19 billion was to be spent in Pakistan till June 2021, which seems that the situation is not comfortable as the present government has delayed the projects.