Pakistan “Dropped the Game-Changer”: Minister Admits Country Failed to Benefit From CPEC

Pakistan’s Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal has openly acknowledged that the country failed to fully capitalize on the china-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), saying political attempts by the previous government to scandalize Chinese investments drove away critical investors and stalled major development initiatives. His remarks were reported by The Express Tribune and cited by PTI.

Speaking during the opening session of a two-day DataFest Conference hosted by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, Iqbal used a cricket analogy to describe the missed economic opportunity. Referring to CPEC as a transformative project that Pakistan mishandled, he said, “We dropped the catch of the game-changer CPEC,” noting that political chaos and misinformation campaigns severely undermined investor confidence.

The minister emphasized that China had supported Pakistan repeatedly during difficult periods, yet domestic political rivals worked to cast suspicion on Chinese investments, discouraging large-scale funding and derailing long–term planning. The USD 60 billion CPEC initiative, a flagship component of President xi jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative, aims to connect China’s Xinjiang region with Pakistan’s Gwadar port.

Iqbal’s statements mark one of the rare occasions in which a senior cabinet member has publicly admitted that Pakistan has failed to achieve CPEC’s strategic and long-term objectives. According to The Express Tribune, development of the corridor slowed significantly after 2018.

Official records show that the CPEC Joint Cooperation Committee (JCC)—the project’s top decision-making platform—has convened 14 times. However, the bulk of meaningful progress occurred before the seventh JCC meeting in 2017. Later phases, including the crucial plan to relocate Chinese industries to Pakistan and ramp up exports through accelerated industrialization, failed to take off.

The report adds that in the most recent JCC meeting, both sides reiterated that Pakistan must strengthen its support structures for Special Economic Zones (SEZs) if it hopes to attract new investment—even a decade after CPEC’s launch. According to PTI, Pakistani officials assured China that they would continue improving the business climate and implement policies designed to draw foreign companies, particularly Chinese enterprises, into the SEZs.