China investing $46 billion in Pakistan's infrastructure

(Image credit: Feng Li/Getty Images)

last updated 21 April 2015

The Chinese government is investing in a program called the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a $46 billion project that will do everything from upgrade railways to build power plants in Pakistan.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is in Pakistan for his first state visit, and during a ceremony in Islamabad on Monday, Xi and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif performed a remote groundbreaking via video on five projects, including a $1.4 billion dam near Islamabad. "Friendship with China is the cornerstone of Pakistan's foreign policy," Sharif said. "Today, we have planned for the future."

Chinese companies will tackle the work, The Wall Street Journal reports, and it will be financed through Chinese investment or loans. The proposed corridor will link the northwestern Chinese province of Xinjiang with the Pakistani port of Gwadar through a system of roads, and will create important power-generation plants to combat Pakistan's frequent electricity shortages. Most of the $28 billion in advance projects are expected to be finished by 2018, with the rest by 2030.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.