THIS refers to the article ‘IMF and CPEC debts’ (Aug 2) by Khurram Husain. The writer says that the next five years of Imran Khan’s rule would be very crucial for the country, especially the national economy.

Though the writer has discussed several issues pertaining to Pakistan’s economy, the statement of the former finance minister Miftah Ismail needs special mentioning when, as per this article, he is quoted by Reuters as saying: “these loans are not as big as imagined by the Western countries, and that their weighted average interest rate is two per cent. These are not loans that will break our back.”

At present, Pakistan owes to its lenders a huge amount of $91.7 billion. To pay back the installments of this loan, it has to acquire more loans. Add to this the loans taken from China ($62 billion) under the CEPC project. The total loan comes to about $153.7 billion. Aren’t these loans quite huge and sufficient to break our back?

The CPEC project was launched more than three years ago. But the entire focus has been only on the construction of roads. Besides roads, our thrust should have been on the establishment of nine special economic zones as well along the CPEC corridor in different areas of Pakistan. These zones should produce costly, high-quality exportable goods.

The progress on various projects under the CPEC should be mentioned on the CPEC website on a daily basis. The existing website should be replaced by a new website which should be professionally prepared by an international reputable firm. As we will be spending a huge amount of money on CPEC ($62 billion), we should use each and every penny of this project judiciously.

A. Khan

Karachi

Published in Dawn, August 20th, 2018