BEIJING – Terming Pakistan as his second home, China Communication Construction Company’s Vice President Sun Ziyu has believed that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) would also bring socio-economic benefits to the neighbouring countries and world.
“I believe, the CPEC, a flagship project of the Belt and Road Initiative announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping for the shared prosperity of humankind, will benefit China, Pakistan, neighbouring countries and the world,” Ziyu said while talking to APP in an interview.
He informed that CCCC, dedicated to the construction, investment, development and operation of infrastructure in the countries along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) including Pakistan, was already working on various projects including the Gwadar Port under the CPEC framework.
Sun said that his company was one of world’s largest port designers and constructors, leading designers and constructors of highways, bridges and well-known comprehensive city developer, “We are planning construction of Gwadar smart city.”
He said that last year, his company’s new contracts in overseas achieved the total value of US$41 billion, the turnover of US$20.3 billion and a total profit of US$ 1.35 billion.
Having experience of dredging, international designing and expressway and bridges building, the company would construct a dry port in Gwadar.
“We have selected a land measuring five square kilometres for the dry port,” he added.
China Harbour, a subsidiary of his company, was working on construction of East Bay Expressway project, he said.
The vice president shared that his company was likely to play a pivotal role in the up-gradation and rehabilitation of Pakistan Railways under the CPEC, the project was at the planning stage.
He informed that his company had built a total of more than 10,000 kilometres of highways and signed contracts or built more than 2,000 kilometres of railways around the world.
The Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge railway in Kenya completed and launched to operation last year had aroused the attention of Africa and the whole world, he said and added, “We are also accelerating the progress of such projects as the Nairobi-Maraba Railway in Kenya and the East Coast Rail Link of Malaysia with a contract value of nearly US$10 billion.
The vice president said that his company took part in construction of the bridges on the most important Karakuram Highway (KKH) in Pakistan, adding the project teams had almost become an emergency rescue squad for local government.
In August 2010, Pakistan suffered a once-in-a-hundred-year flood. The project department entered the disaster site early and erected steel bridges, blocked the flood and cleaned the mud-rock flow day and night.
Their efforts won favourable comments from the local government and the local community, he added.
When asked to comment, he said the recently held first international exhibition and investment conference at Gwadar was a historical milestone.
He hoped that Gwadar Expo 2018 would open new avenues for the businessmen from both China and Pakistan to establish their businesses.
Over 100 companies participated in the recently held two-day exhibition aimed at providing a platform for Pakistani and Chinese businessmen, already working on CPEC-related projects.
