ISLAMABAD: Gwadar Port has the capacity to handle large crude containers of up to 500,000 tonnes deadweight and it will promote economic development in the country and would provide vast employment opportunities to the locals.
Furthermore, the establishment of free-trade and economic zones and export processing zone would attract foreign investment, and employment opportunities to the local people. Gwadar would generate massive revenues for the Balochistan province, an official at the Minister for Ports and Shipping told Customs Today.
While elaborating a comparison between Gwadar Port and Iranian Chabahar Port, he said that countries of Central Asia would likely to benefit from both Chabahar and Gwadar. As for the competition between the two ports, it will not be a “winner take all” outcome.
The sources said that Gwadar Port was located on the Gulf of Oman, close to the entrance of Persian Gulf. It is a deep warm water sea port, about 460-kilometer west of Karachi and approximately 75-kilometer east of Pakistan border with Iran.
“It is strategically between the oil-rich Middle East, the economically shortest route to the oil-rich Central Asian States through land-locked Afghanistan, and heavily populated South Asia. It is at the mouth of the Gulf through which 40 percent of the world’s oil passes daily,” he added.
He said that Gwadar Port would become a trade hub, once road and rail tracks are linked with rest of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia. Pakistan has future plan for development of Gwadar to cater to the needs of foreign trade of the Central Asian Republics and the Chinese provinces off Xingjian and the Sichuan provinces.
So far as Chabahar Port is concerned, he said that it was situated on the Makran Coast of the Sistan and Balochistan of Iran and was officially declared as a free trade and industrial zone by the Iranian government. The port has received India investment up to $ 131 million.
Berths in Port of Chabahar include general cargo and bulk and Berth capacities range from 2,000 to 2,500 tonnes. Chabahar Shahid Beheshti Jetty has a length of 600 metres and four vessels of up to 25,000 gross tonnage and 11-metre draught simultaneously.
