Gwadar, Pakistan October 25: An unprecedented Chinese financial and construction effort is rapidly developing Pakistan's strategically located Arabian Sea Gwadar port into one of the world's largest transit and transshipment cargo facilities.

The deepwater port lies at the convergence of three of the most commercially important regions of the world, the oil-rich Middle East, Central Asia, and South Asia.

Beijing is developing Gwadar as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, known as CPEC. The two countries launched the 15-year joint mega project in 2015 when President Xi Jinping visited Islamabad.

Under the cooperation deal construction or improvement of highways, railways, pipelines, power plants, communications and industrial zones are underway in Pakistan with an initially estimated Chinese investment of $46 billion.

The aim is to link Gwadar port to landlocked western China, including its Muslim-majority Xinjiang region, giving it access to a shorter and secure route through Pakistan to global trade. The port will also provide the shortest route to landlocked Central Asian countries, including Afghanistan, through transit trade and offer transshipment facilities.

Chinese fuel imports and trading cargo will be loaded on trucks and ferried to and from Xinjiang through the Karakoram Highway, snaking past snow-capped peaks in northern Pakistan.

'Qualitative change'

Gwadar will be able to handle about one million tons of cargo annually by the end of the year. Officials anticipate that with expansion plans underway, the port will become South Asia's biggest shipping center within five years, with a yearly capacity of handling 13-million tons of cargo. And by 2030, they say, it will be capable of handling up to 400-million tons of cargo annually.

China has in recent months begun calling CPEC the flagship project of its global Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI. The "qualitative change" from an experimental project to flagship project underscores the importance Beijing attaches to CPEC, said Zhao Lijian, the deputy chief of mission at the Chinese embassy in Islamabad.

Out of 39 "early harvest" projects under CPEC, 19 have since been completed or are under construction with a Chinese investment of about $18.5 billion, Lijian told VOA. The progress makes it the fastest developing of all of at least six BRI's corridors China plans to establish, added the Chinese diplomat.(VOA)