Pak goes ahead with CPEC amid mounting debts, further economic fallout due to COVID-19

Debt-ridden Pakistan is going ahead with its strategic USD 60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project, despite the country's further economic downturn due to the coronavirus crisis.

"There is no political hindrance in its way. The project is Pakistan's future as well as a tangible reality and no compromise will be made on it," CPEC Authority Chairman Lt-Gen (retd) Asim Saleem Bajwa told a group of journalists on Wednesday.

The work for the completion of the project is in progress on a fast pace, he said.

Pakistan takes decisions in its interest and there should be no doubt that the CPEC project "is in the best interest of the country" and "no external pressure will be accepted", the Express Tribune quoted Bajwa as saying.

India has objected to the CPEC -- a planned network of roads, railways and energy projects linking China's Xinjiang province with Pakistan's Gwadar Port -- as it is being laid through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

The US has also been critical of the ...