Look. Only China is investing in Pakistan.
China plans up to $10bn investment in Pakistan, boosting FDI in agriculture, mining, manufacturing, and strategic infrastructure projects.
www.emerginggwadar.com
Western narrative. Chinese investment. You have chosen the Western narrative.
stop using the word "investment", it is inaccurate here.
a better fit would be exploits.
investment implies an investor takes an equity stake, shares the risk, and seeks an ROI.
98% of chinese "investment" was Loans, NOT equity, that too, at non concessional rates.
If a project fails, an investor would lose their money. If a project fails under CPEC, Pakistan still pays the loan. The "investor" in this case loses nothing, and Pakistan bares all risk.
Not only that, but CPEC was a closed loop.
Pakistan was loaned money by China, to then spend those same Chinese loans on Chinese companies to come and build questionable infrastructure projects, using Chinese labour and Chinese state owned enterprises.
Its literally win, win, win for Xi and his cronies. There is nothing to lose for them, but all the upside available.
Hell, Pakistan did not even get the loans, Chinese banks would route the money to Chinese firms, and Pakistan would foot the bill and accept the project.
If these were normal investments, the chinese would be subject to market fluctuations, but the ROE is a sovereign guarantee... once again, securing an upside for the firm, with ZERO RISK.
Not only that, but it is CLEAR AS DAY, some Chinese firms have been inflating projects to rack up more money, money which will be footed by the Pakistani taxpayer.
the Sukkur-Multan motorway had a $600m discrepancy in the final costings. CSCEC was awarded the contract via a very vague process, one which Pakistan had no say, nor any involvement over, just, footing the bill.
Not only that, but energy projects were guaranteed ROI's nearly, or in excess of double of norms. Not only that, but this incentivised padding, because it would inflate the sovereign guarantees at the expense of the Pakistani taxpayer. Once again, more upside for the Chinese, without ANY risk, so again...not an investment.
The Lahore orange line cost $1.6bn for 27km. In China, high speed tracks run for about 17 million per kilometer.
Another INSANE example was Gwadar airport. Why was it built to ICAO code F standards? Which one of the 5 A380 operators is running A380 operations out of gwadar? Looking at other project costs, about 25% of the cost of the entire project would have gone to building the airport to Code F standards, i.e 65 million for A380 SPECIFIC requirements, for an aircraft type that will NEVER fly there. This is such a good example of gold plating, build to the max possible spec, frontload the high costs and requirements, and **** over the taxpayer.
Its not investment, its exploitation, investment requires a risk, a potential downside. For China, there was none.
It was awarding shady contracts to Xi's pals, with Chinese state banks frontloading however much cash they'd like, for which, the bill will go to Pakistani taxpayers. Half of every rupee collected is earmarked for debt servicing, of which, the majority is to China.
Pakistan has to take loans, to repay the interest on Chinese "investment". Sounds more like China is a loan shark, not an "investor".
You're no different to the East India company, you're literally them, but reborn. Take your "investment" and shove it up your arse.
cpecinfo.com
