Gwadar progress is on fast-track and heading to a promising 2022, Gwadar now witnessed a wave of development projects that is opening new avenues of employment and businesses and will lay a strong infrastructural foundation for the country’s future.
Gwadar being the flagship project of China’s Belt and Road Initiative has attracted eyeballs from all across the world specially after the new master plan of Gwadar was made public in late 2019. Gwadar is on it’s way to become the trade, economic and tourism hub of South Asia. High paid jobs, tax-free environment, high-tech industries, mega shopping malls, luxury resorts, and Pakistan’s largest international airport, are all included in the blueprints that will see Gwadar become one of the largest cities in both Pakistan and the world, similar to Dubai or Singapore.
Key Highlights:
✓ Gwadar Special Economic Zone overview: In order to facilitate rapid commercial and economic development, Gwadar was declared a Special Economic Zone for a certain period, The length of this period has not yet been determined. Special Economic Zone (SEZ) is a fruitful strategy for promoting trade, employment and economic growth in Gwadar.
✓ Gwadar Port and Gwadar Free Zone phase 1, spread over 60 acres of land, has already been completed and is fully operational, with 46 enterprises already registered. Afghan transit cargo starting processed through Gwadar port on January 14, 2020 – more than 100,000 metric tonnes of Afghan cargo have been handled at the port. Gwadar Free Zone phase 2, which is thirty five times bigger than the first phase, spread over 2200 acres was ground broken by PM Imran Khan as of July 2021. Gwadar Port and Gwadar Free Zone is predicted to generate $10 billion in annual economic activity, and will create around 12,000 jobs in the next 3 years.
✓ Gwadar has been put on a development fast-track after PM Imran Khan’s visit in July 2021 where he launched 10 mega development projects, including Phase Two of Gwadar’s Freezone and a mega water desalination plant, solving Gwadar’s fresh water problem once and for all.
✓ The New Gwadar International Airport (NGIA), the $ 246 million greenfield airport being built at an area of 4,300 acres would be operational by September 2023.
✓ COPHC launched a large-scale tree-planting program, aimed to enhance Gwadar’s afforestation and improve the local’s living environment. They have established a plant tissue culture laboratory and a greenhouse to conduct the research, breed and planting of non-wood forest plants here and try to bring more benefits to the local people.
✓ The first Pakistan-China technical vocational institute opens in Gwadar. The project has been developed at a cost of $10 million in the shortest period of 20 months only. Pak-China Vocational Institute has state-of-the-art equipment and machinery to impart the best kind of technical education and skills to the youth of Balochistan including Gwadar. Not only free accommodation but scholarships would also be given to the students of the Pak-China Institute. The trained youth would have golden opportunities to get employment in Gwadar Port, Free Zone Industry and other projects of CPEC.
✓ 94% of construction work has been completed on the East Bay Expressway which connects Gwadar Port directly into the CPEC motorway network leading to Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and on to China.
✓ Gwadar’s new masterplan will see Gwadar become a game changer not just for Pakistan, but the wider region as well, giving the land locked Central Asian states access to Gwadar’s warm waters.
✓ Gwadar Smart City Master Plan is approved and in implementation stages to improve the city’s infrastructure and facilitate with modernization. The new master plan will see Gwadar’s population exceed two million people with high paid expatriate professionals accounting for up to 80% of the population. Gwadar’s economy will surpass $30 Billion per annum in the long-term, creating 1-1.2 Million high paid jobs with an average income per capita of $15,000. Pakistan’s current average income per capita is around $1500, meaning on average people living in Gwadar will earn 10 times what anyone living elsewhere in Pakistan earns.
The time to invest in Gwadar is now – invest securely with the market leader.