KABUL: Following the announcement of expansion plans, analysts predict that Beijing’s multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor would help Afghanistan’s struggling economy and regional status. During a trilateral meeting in Beijing on Wednesday, the Chinese, Pakistani, and Afghan foreign ministers agreed to widen a key component of China’s global infrastructure and investment policy.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the development of CPEC sought to “deepen” collaboration under the Belt and Road Initiative, which was established in 2013 to connect China to the rest of Asia, Europe, and Africa.
According to Amin Stanikzai, an economist and lecturer at the Rokhan Institute of Higher Education in Nangarhar, the mega project represents an “important opportunity” for Afghanistan to strengthen its political and economic ties with China, Pakistan, and neighbouring Central Asian republics.
“It may act as a crossroads for China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, as well as South and Central Asia, which favours Afghanistan… Afghanistan is hopeful about the CPEC project, in part because it benefits from regional connections as a landlocked country with limited sea access.
Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 2021, the country’s economy has struggled under Western sanctions, and unemployment has more than quadrupled.
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