by Misbah Saba Malik
ISLAMABAD, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) will play a great role in eradicating poverty from Pakistan as it will open many employment and business opportunities, Muhammad Irfan, assistant professor of Economics at Comsats University Islamabad, has said recently.
"You will need warehouses, production houses, hotels, houses, hospitals, schools along the roads built under CPEC. The important thing about CPEC is that it passes through the region where Pakistan has not spent much so far. It will remove disparity between the regions. If the disparity decreases and income opportunities increases and deprived people have an option to earn well, it will change the whole Pakistan," Irfan told Xinhua.
About 29.7 percent people of over 2 million population in Pakistan, according to the latest report of the Asian Development Bank, are living below the poverty line.
The country has been declared as highly exposed to poverty by the World Bank and the issue has always remained a big challenge for policymakers.
Shafqatullah came all the way from Pakistan's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province to the country's capital Islamabad for earning a livelihood for himself and his six-member family.
"I belong to a very poor village where people don't even have enough food to eat, let alone employment or education opportunities. Here I work at a motorbike repair shop where my boss trains me to repair motorbikes and gives me a stipend some 200 rupees (about 1.5 U.S. dollars) everyday."
Talking to Xinhua in front of the shop, Shafqatullah said that he aspires to open his own shop one day and he will employ young boys like himself who had to leave their families for employment opportunities in big cities.
Experts believe that multiple factors including huge population growth, natural disasters which cause great economic loss, economic instability and huge income gap between different classes, are the major factors contributing to poverty in the country.
Suggesting quick measures to be taken by the government for giving a relief in poverty, the educationist said that the poverty issue is closely connected with food consumption and income generation, so governmental and private sectors should create more part time work opportunities to increase income of people.
The new Pakistani government has announced mega projects including construction of dams and multi-million housing projects, Irfan said, adding that if the government keeps its promise and initiate these projects quickly, they will give employment to a large number of people as both housing societies and dams need a lot of labor force, besides engineers, architects and business people.
"If it continues with the same pace, you will see in two or three years that there is a higher growth rate, decrease in unemployment, and improvement in balance of payment."
The future of Pakistan is bright if CPEC and the government initiates continues, said Irfan.
