Imtiaz Gul
The second phase of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has tremendous industrial and social sector development components, and proportionate challenges. The question is, is Pakistan’s civil/military leadership and tardy governance architecture ready to tackle the preceding planning?
Criminal bureaucratic inaction/ineptitude in the case of nearly one billion dollar extremely low-cost loans from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) are a case in point. Approved in January this year, there are still no signs Pakistan is ready to sign those deals to secure these cheap loans.
Is it indifference to pressing public issues within governance structures? Or is it the systemic, status quo opposition to the PTI government that has deprived country of these badly needed resources? Or is it sheer inefficiency and a lack of will to lunge for urgently needed hard currency?
Something is definitely wrong with Pakistan’s decision-making and implementation mechanisms.
Largely planned out by the Chinese officials precisely for the aforementioned reasons, the first CPEC phase went relatively smoothly as it mostly prioritized low-hanging fruit, such as power and road infrastructure. Instructed by President Xi Jinping, big Chinese corporations simply complied and invested in the energy sector and the road network, regardless expected rate of return.
But the hard task now lies ahead. Industrialization and employment-generation through Special Economic Zones (SEZ) along the CPEC necessitate minimal bureaucratic rigmarole and swift centralized responses.
Many issues associated with the launch of the CPEC five years ago are still pending fulfilment. China, for instance, had projected a demand for 800,000 semi-skilled Pakistani labour with knowledge of robotics and having functional fluency in the Chinese language. This meant initiation of vocational and language training facilities at Gwadar and elsewhere on a war-footing. Unfortunately, the lack of implementation on this front have left many Chinese friends worried and upset.
Pakistani civil and military officials keep placing wish-lists for investments on the table but pay scant attention to their own role, i.e., creation of the enabling environment resulting in overall success.
Why should Chinese industries relocate to Pakistan if there is no skilled labor? Why should they waste their precious time and energy in chasing officials, placating courts, and courting rent-seeking officials? And how does the government and bureaucracy expect to create employment if skilled labor is absent?
Equally dismal is the story of nine SEZs, another victim of the obsolete, obsolescent, and obfuscating bureaucratic procedures. Not a single SEZ has been made functional. Contrast this with what China did for its SEZs. Leaders in Beijing, including Deng XiaoPing and his successors, made sure that everything – from land to utility services – is placed on a platter before inviting industrialists to set up production.
In our case, the federal government signed agreements for SEZs express-speed projects but literally left the entire implementation plan to the vultures within the system, i.e., the provincial bureaucracies, land revenue authorities, and the corrupt lower courts where so-called “stay order” rules the roost.
The net results is that our Chinese friends are expected to bring money, purchase land, and deal with local departments, courts, and utility services, all by themselves. It’s shameful, to say the least.
Even urgently needed services for Gwadar – water, electricity, a refurbished airport, vocational training centers – were left to the discretion of National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA), and the slow, incompetent, and corrupt provincial bureaucracy.
It is no wonder that officials and academia in Beijing and Shanghai keep wondering whether Pakistan can really match the Chinese expectations with its current governance regime. They ask as to how much advanced planning is currently underway to guide Chinese investors into areas where Pakistan needs foreign investment the most?
Another example for inadequate advance planning is the landmark Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that China has acceded to Pakistan as a special favor. But one wonders how much work has gone into identifying exportable items and potential buyers in China?
At the moment Chinese frustration over lack of proactive planning in Pakistan is boiling over. But this is not a cause for disengagement or scaling down of CPEC related activities, underline officials in Beijing. Their leaders stand committed and are bent on turning CPEC into a roaring, exemplary success.
A small caution accompanies this reassurance: Pakistani leaders must avoid dumping blame of their internal inefficiency and bureaucratic lethargy on Chinese counterparts.
Fixing systemic complexities is exclusively Pakistan’s mandate in a business culture that only breeds frustration among Chinese businesspersons and officials. They are used to carry out tasks without bureaucratic or legal hiccups, but in Pakistan many have swallowed a bitter pill.
It is quite clear that it is all in the hands of the Pakistani leadership to preserve its unique strategic relationship with China by preventing unnecessary irritants and suspicions in business transactions. Top tier civil-military leadership must guard against elements trying to drive a wedge between the two countries. These relations, insist Chinese academics and officials, transcend all other issues.
However, they insist that it takes two to tango and a lot would depend on the will and clarity of the Pakistani civil-military leaders and bureaucracy, as to whether they can put their act together and thus maximally benefit from the promise of CPEC. China remains committed to Pakistan even beyond the CPEC goals. Expansion of CPEC cooperation and preservation of these time-tested relations will largely depend on how Pakistani stake-holders play it out to reciprocate the Chinese expectations of quick fixes for effective and speedy implementation of projects.
