New Pakistani Port Draws Mixed Reviews

Pakistani artisans prepare new boat for fishing on the beach of Gwadar, about 700 kilometers (435 miles) west of Karachi, Pakistan, Tuesday, March 20, 2007. By the azure waters of the Arabian Sea, a remote Pakistani fishing town is being transformed into a massive deep sea port that promises quicker passage for Chinese exports to the Middle East and beyond. (AP Photo/Shakil Adil) (Shakil Adil - AP)

Much of the transport infrastructure needed to link Gwadar with Pakistan's northern neighbor is yet to be built, but potentially, it will nearly halve the overland distance from China's landlocked western provinces to the sea: from about 2,500 miles to China's east coast, to just 1,250 miles south to Gwadar.

The first stage of a 280-mile road is under construction that would eventually link this southwestern tip of Pakistan with the country's north-south Indus Highway, facilitating overland transport from Gwadar toward China.

The link road should be complete within five years, says Ahmed Baksh Lahri, chief of the Gwadar Development Authority.

It will still be a tough drive: passing along the Karakorum Highway that winds through the rugged mountains of northern Pakistan and crossing into Xinjiang province via a border crossing point at 15,397 feet. The route is often blocked by snow in winter.

Longer-term plans also call for road and rail links from Gwadar that would pass through strife-torn Afghanistan to Central Asian states.

In March, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf presided over the ceremonial inauguration of the port, although officials say it will be several more months before the three shipping berths open for business.

Singapore's PSA International Pte Ltd. last year won a bid to operate the port for 40 years, and the government has exempted it from corporate tax and all import duties on equipment and machinery. China did not bid to operate the port.

Khurram Abbas, the chief of PSA's operation in Gwadar, said PSA plans to invest between $5 billion to $8 billion over the 40-year period. He forecast the port would generate revenues of between $17 billion and $31 billion during that time.

That should transform the local economy beyond recognition, but Gwadar's 70,000 residents are skeptical. Fishermen _ the main vocation here _ complain they have already lost out.

"The port area was our prime fishing area and we used to make thousands (of rupees) every day, but not now," said Lal Bakhsh, a fisherman in his 40s, explaining they now had to cast their nets further afield in the Arabian Sea.

Currently it appears the chief beneficiaries of the Gwadar's boom are outsiders.

Qasim Khan, who comes from northwestern Pakistan, runs a prosperous real estate business. He said investors from big cities like Lahore and Karachi were buying tracts of land in Gwadar, anticipating values will appreciate sharply.

That is a source of resentment among ethnic Baluch. Militant tribesmen in the province, Pakistan's poorest, are already waging a low-level insurgency, accusing the central government of pocketing too much revenue from Baluchistan's natural gas reserves.

"In the name of so-called development, the land of the people of Gwadar is being taken away," said Hasil Baloch, secretary general of Baluchistan National Party. Baloch also claimed that skilled laborers from outside were getting all the jobs in the port's construction.

Authorities deny any locals have been forcibly evicted from their land. But town mayor Abdul Ghafoor Kalmati said the government has failed to build a vocational college that was promised five years ago that could have alleviated the shortage of local skilled labor.

"Gwadar has been a neglected town of deprived people," he said. "They deserve much more."