Gwadar port agreement with Singapore may be cancelled, says minister

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Gwadar port agreement with Singapore may be cancelled, says minister

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secular__pakistan
Blocked

Gwadar pact with Singapore may be cancelled, says Gabol

QUETTA - Federal Minister for Port and Shipping Nabeel Gabol has said that Gwadar port would be made functional in accordance with the wishes of people of Balochistan and mistakes of past would not be repeated.

He was addressing a Press conference in Gwadar on Saturday. CM Balochistan Nawab Muhammad Aslam Raisani and other provincial ministers were also present on the occasion.

Nabeel Gabol said that owing to dictatorial policies of former rulers the sense of deprivation in people of Balochistan has increased to a great extent.

‘Former rulers had inflicted many wounds to the people of Balochistan due to which they do not trust anybody’, he said , adding, PPP govt soon after its formation sought apology from people of Balochistan for all injustices done by former rulers.

He said that PPP govt wanted to bring Balochistan at par with other developed areas of country and solve its longstanding issues on priority basis.

He said that if former ruler Musharraf was sincere with Balochistan then he would not have launched military drive which claimed lives of many people including Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti.

He said that PPP wanted to bring real development in Balochistan and make the Gwadar Port second largest port of the country which could play central role in country’s economy.

He said that without taking into confidence the people of Balochistan and provincial govt no agreement would be made with anyone and agreements made by the then rulers were wrong. ‘Agreement regarding handing over of Gwadar Port to Singapore would be reviewed and it could be cancelled’, he added.

Nabeel Gabol said that we wanted that people of Balochistan should have first right on Gwadar Port and local people should have all the opportunity to get benefit from it.

‘My personal opinion is that Gwadar Port should be handed over to Balochistan govt so that it could be developed like other provinces of the country’, he said ,adding, local people of Gwadar should be given first priority in jobs.

He said that govt would remove all apprehensions and reservations of people of Balochistan.

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Politics/21-Dec-2008/Gwadar-pact-with-Singapore-may-be-cancelled-says-Gabol

***** Wonderful! Now scare away the few investors who are left in the country. This is great for the country and the reliability of its govt. Investors bid for projects in competitive open bidding processes, win the bid through merit and sign the contract, and, then a few months/years later a new govt. will come and turn everything upside down and cancel the contract! This surely will bring development to Balochistan and help the people of Balochistan come out of the absolute hell hole of poverty they are stick in! Or not.

Posted 3 years ago on 20 Dec 2008 22:49 #
codefreaq
Member

thanks to mush at this point balochi people are playing songs of azad balochistan in public transport, gwadar is a minor issue compared to that. removing their sense of deprivation is first priority.

Posted 3 years ago on 20 Dec 2008 23:09 #
secular__pakistan
Blocked

You will never develop or be happy or be successful or satisfy Balochis or the people of any other province if you do not develop your economy, there is no two ways, you can have the greatest best democracy and the free-est media and the most indepenedent judiciary and justice and law and peace and everything, but, you will never get anywhere unless you develop your economy. History proves this, the Brits the Americans. The present and future is proof to it, China, India.

And, already Pakistanis and Pakistan is considered one of the least reliable countries in the world, what message will you send when your govts. come and cancel signed written contracts and agreements of the past?

Is that how we should treat foreign investors (or anyone else for that matter)? By cancelling signed contracts and agreements which they won through open bidding processes? Is this how we're gonna become a great country? Is this how you will alleviate poverty?

Posted 3 years ago on 21 Dec 2008 8:52 #
Fahim23
Member

Gawadar port operational - finally!!

http://www.aajtv.com/urdu/business/2008/12/21/32659_4_story.html

Posted 3 years ago on 21 Dec 2008 12:22 #
Asif
Blocked

if theres no justice, no one will invest as evident from the ruling class own invest, check the invest of all ruling gernails, bhuttos, converted bhuttos, sharifs, chaudrys...

No protection to investment is the reason of falling economy.

Posted 3 years ago on 21 Dec 2008 16:47 #
secular__pakistan
Blocked

I wonder why then hundreds of billions of dollars of foreign investment flow into China?

I wonder why tens of billions of dollars of foreign investment flow into Gulf states?

I wonder why then foreign investment went from a few hundred million dollars to around 8 billion dollars under evil satanic dictator pig Musharraf.

(If by justice you mean "independent judiciary" or some other form of justice as claimed by Aitzaz Ahsan or Chaudhry Iftikhar)

Protection to the investors means respecting and upholding agreements and contracts made with them, and, cancelling the Gwadar port contract with Singapore would be a violation of that. And, it would be a violation of justice.

Posted 3 years ago on 21 Dec 2008 23:06 #
codefreaq
Member

I hope there would be no need of violating any contract but no foreign investment would also flow in with balochi separatists blowing up people in gawadar. hopefully zardari can somehow make all sides happy, double dealing is probably the only thing he is good at

Posted 3 years ago on 21 Dec 2008 23:11 #
Fahim23
Member

Relevant news

http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/pakistan/story/2008/12/081221_guwader_pak_nj.shtml

Posted 3 years ago on 22 Dec 2008 1:50 #
Anonymous

@codefreaq,

Balochis are not separatist , they are freedom fighters. Don't insult them.

We used the same terminology against Bengalis and then our "BRAVE ARMY" had to surrender in front of those freedom fighters.

Btw, do u people know , how traffic will flow up country from Gawadar :) Its the joke of the century. It will use coastal hightway to come to karachi and then go upcountry. Why a ship coming from any part of the world ,apart from persian gulf, will go 550 miles further to Gawadar to dislodge and then the same trafic will come back via road to go upcountry. But , this ship will not use Karachi or Bin Qasim ports. Isn't interesting :)

Posted 3 years ago on 22 Dec 2008 5:39 #
codefreaq
Member

@ askhan

are you balochi ? and do you know the difference between terrorist,separatist and freedom fighters?

the road thing you mention is interesting I dont know anything about it. are they planning to build a road in the future? or the port just increases karachi ports capacity? Pakistani may be dumb enough to make such a blunder but the chinese invested in this so there must be some kind of logic behind it

Posted 3 years ago on 22 Dec 2008 6:27 #
codefreaq
Member

from wikipedia

Gwadar transport

...The construction of the port has spurred other major infrastructure projects in the area. This includes the 700 km Makran Coastal Highway which is now complete. The road links Karachi with several ports along the coast including Ormara, Pasni, Gwadar and will be extended to the Iranian border in the future. The highway has reduced travel time to Karachi from 48 hours to only 7 hours. Other road projects include the Gwadar-Quetta-Chaman road which is due for completion in 2006 and a roadlink to the town of Khuzdar in eastern Balochistan. There are also plans for a terminal for passenger ships.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Pakistan has earmarked 3000 acres (12 km²) of land for Gwadar International Airport which will be built 26 km away to the northeast of the existing airport towards Pasni and is likely to cost between $200-250 million. The new airport will be given international status and operate under the open sky policy. In the meantime there are plans to improve facilities at the existing airport.

Railways

Former Railway Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad said, “The government is focusing on laying the Havelian-Kashghar (China) and Quetta-Kandahar (Afghanistan) railway tracks”. In 2006, Ministry of Railways announced that Gwadar will be connected to Pakistan Railways network at an expected cost of $ 1.25 billion (Rs. 75-billion).

Posted 3 years ago on 22 Dec 2008 6:35 #
Anonymous

@codefreaq,

To me Nawab Akbar Bugti died an honourable death and zia ul haq or Yahya or Niazi died ---- kiii moot.

Anyone , who is fighting for the truth, for the rights of the masses , for the rights of the motherland is a freedom fighter.

There is a plan to link ratodero (Larkana) to Gawadar through motorway and that was planned way back in 90's and its still under construction.

At the moment , the only link to Gawadar is coastal highway.

For rail link , there is no link at all and none being constructed. About planning i m not aware.

Gentleman , u didn't catch my question at all. Even if , Gawadar -ratedero link is built , why u want the ships to go further 500 miles further towards persian gulf and then the traffic to come back by road to go up north. Why not to use Karachi or Bin Qasim port which are quite under utilized . Couple of years i heard An official of Ministry of Shipping saying that these 2 ports are only working at 20% capacity .

Posted 3 years ago on 22 Dec 2008 8:02 #
larki
Blocked

gwadar is for exporting drugs and importing gold.
and so it shall remain.

Posted 3 years ago on 22 Dec 2008 8:23 #