CPEC is an economic revitalizer, not a debt trap, clarifies Dr. Ishrat Hussain

China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is not a debt trap and all its projects in the energy sector are investments while loans constitute only a small proportion of the overall CPEC portfolio.

This was said by Dr Ishrat Hussain, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Institutional Reforms and Austerity with a status of a Federal Minister while speaking at a seminar titled “Upscaling the Economic Activities of CPEC: Opportunities and Challenges” organized by the Institute of Regional Studies (IRS) on Wednesday.

PM’s Adviser further added the Chinese loans were on concessional rates of 2.34 percent.

Dr Ishrat Hussain shared that completed CPEC energy projects had already added 5,320 MW to the power generation capacity in Pakistan with an investment of $7.9 billion.

He added that a capacity of another 4,440 MW would be added through an investment of another $9.55 billion.

He also shared details of the various infrastructure projects under CPEC and said that the total tally of all projects under CPEC was around $52 billion.

He added that plans for upgrading the transmission and distribution networks were already in the pipeline.