This op-ed focuses on the failure of the Planning Commission for not devising a strategy for the joint procurement of LPG, oil, and LNG, unlike India and China. Both established a buyers’ bloc in 2018 through a Joint Working Group (JWG) on energy, enabling them to bargain collectively for oil, LPG, and LNG and secure lower global prices. Pakistan, by contrast, has missed this strategic opportunity, a hard and bitter fact. According to the NEPRA, State of Industry Report 2024, electricity from CPEC’s coal plants ranks among the most expensive worldwide. This amounts to missteps—from importing expensive coal plants to incurring astronomical electricity costs.
Pakistan stands at a crossroads. The China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) was once hailed as a transformative initiative, promising regional connectivity and energy salvation. Yet, the first phase—the energy phase—has proven to be a fiscal catastrophe. Grand pronouncements of economic transformation have yielded some of the world’s most expensive electricity. This was no accident. It was a choice.
In June 2014, Engineer Arshad H. Abbasi issued a clear warning. The technology and fuel choices for CPEC’s coal plants would define Pakistan’s economic future. His counsel was precise: adopt modern, high-efficiency, low-emission technology. Reject outdated subcritical systems. His advice was ignored. Decision-makers, obsessed with ribbon-cutting and short-term optics, chose politically convenient deals. They chose imported coal plants at their own peril. The nation is now paying the price.
The numbers are damning. According to the NEPRA State of Industry Report 2024, electricity from CPEC’s three 1320 MW imported coal plants ranks among the world’s most expensive. The Sahiwal plant produces power at over Rs 81 per unit. Port Qasim runs around Rs 149 per unit. The China Power Hub plant tops the list at a staggering Rs 311 per unit, including capacity payments. Each unit is a monument to technical negligence, a price tag for ignoring scientific reasoning. The China Power Hub plant now holds a world record: the most expensive electricity ever generated. For this catastrophic achievement, one might sarcastically award a Nobel Prize. What was once a “corridor of light” is now a corridor of debt.
The same minister who presided over this energy debacle now champions CPEC Phase-II. He promises economic transformation once again. But the Planning Commission’s record is one of institutional failure, plagued by bureaucratic inertia, an inept brigade of members, and a critical lack of technical capacity. It has neither the institutional memory nor the competence to deliver. If the Commission could not manage basic energy projects without sinking the power sector into a trillion-rupee circular debt abyss, how can it possibly execute an industrial revolution?
Promises echo hollowly. At the Post-14th Joint Cooperation Committee review meeting in October 2025, Professor Iqbal announced new projects in agriculture, industry, and IT. He spoke of aligning Pakistan’s “Five Es” with China’s Five Corridors. He promised a “Livelihood Corridor” and signed yet another memorandum of understanding. These are just words on paper. They do not address the structural flaws that crippled CPEC-I: weak planning, no cost–benefit analysis, and a total absence of an integrated energy strategy. The blueprint is flawed. The architects remain the same.
While Pakistan’s planners have been trapped in paperwork and ceremony, regional rivals acted with strategic foresight. In 2018, after the Wuhan Summit, India and China established a Joint Working Group on Energy. A structured platform to coordinate joint buying of oil, LPG, and LNG. They bargain collectively, jointly source cargo, and swap shipments. It is a masterclass in pragmatic energy diplomacy.
The contrast with Pakistan is devastating. A stark chasm lies between the Tea Boy’s tangible act of service and the Architect’s hollow monument to fraudulent visions. One quenches a real thirst; the other is a mirage that condemns all to drought. Pakistan’s energy vulnerability is acute. Self-sufficiency in oil is a mere 14%, in LPG barely 42%. Refineries operate below capacity, and gas reserves are depleting rapidly. In 2024 alone, Pakistan spent over US $900 million on imported LPG and nearly US $17 billion on crude and refined petroleum imports. The haemorrhage continues.
China’s scale offers a lifeline. It is the world’s largest energy buyer, importing an average of 11.1 million barrels of crude oil per day in 2024, worth around US$460 billion. It is the top importer of LPG, with 35 million metric tons in 2025. A joint procurement mechanism could leverage China’s negotiating power and Pakistan’s geographic proximity to Gulf suppliers. This single move could save Pakistan billions annually and stabilize domestic markets. Yet, the Planning Commission remains preoccupied with ceremonial meetings and glossy MoUs. It has no coherent energy diplomacy strategy. Its institutional design is outdated. Members lack sectoral expertise. Coordination is minimal. Expecting the same Commission to steer CPEC-II toward industrial revival is not cynicism; it is realism.
China has strategic imperatives of its own. As US-China competition intensifies, Beijing seeks secure overland energy corridors to the Arabian Sea—exactly what CPEC was meant to provide. A Pakistan–China energy-buyers bloc would ensure stable supplies for China and offer Pakistan discounted access to global markets. It is a win-win. But this requires strategic imagination—a quality missing from the Planning Commission’s bureaucratic DNA.
The Prime Minister must act decisively. CPEC-II must be rescued from mediocrity and placed under a technocratic task force of energy economists, engineers, and trade negotiators. The era of the generalist planner must end. Without this, the “upgraded” CPEC will be little more than a rebranding exercise for the same failed model.
The solution lies not in repeating slogans of “friendship higher than the Himalayas” but in pragmatic cooperation grounded in economic logic. Friendship is deep, but friendship without foresight is not partnership. It is dependence. Pakistan stands at a crossroads. It can continue down the path of rhetorical alliances and policy inertia. Or it can embrace a new model of strategic cooperation, learning from India’s institutional foresight and from its own painful mistakes.
A shift toward joint buying of oil, LPG, and LNG with China could dramatically lower prices, stabilize supply chains, and secure rebates that the country sorely needs. Pakistan must pivot toward real economic integration, energy security, and technological modernization. Otherwise, CPEC-II will become another monument to missed opportunity. Just like the coal plants that drain the national exchequer, the first phase of CPEC should have taught the nation that technology, transparency, and foresight are the true engines of progress. If ignored again, Pakistan will pay the same price—not in megawatts, but in generations lost to debt and despair. The architecture of failure must not be allowed to design the future.
