The Pakistani government has allocated an additional budget of Rs 45 billion to strengthen the armed forces’ capacity to protect Chinese commercial interests in the country and manage the fencing along international borders, reports the Pakistani Daily, The Express Tribune. The decision was made during a meeting of the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet on Thursday, which was chaired by Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb.
The newspaper reported that the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) has approved a proposal from the Defence Division for a technical supplementary grant of Rs 45 billion. Out of this amount, Rs 35.4 billion will be allocated to the military and Rs 9.5 billion to the navy for various approved projects during the current fiscal year.
It is the second major supplementary grant approved for the armed forces after the budget was approved in June. Earlier, the ECC gave Rs. 60 billion for Operation Azm-e-Istehkam. These supplementary grants are in addition to the Rs. 2.127 trillion defence budget.
Due to the increasing number of terror attacks, China has demanded the signing of an agreement on anti-terrorism cooperation to address its security concerns. Beijing was not impressed with Islamabad’s efforts to protect Chinese nationals working in Pakistan and provide security for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects despite Pakistani law enforcement agencies launching operations against terror outfits. Beijing has even asked Islamabad to allow it to deploy its own personnel in Pakistan to provide security for the 1,200 Chinese workers in the country. However, Pakistan had not agreed to this demand. Clearly, Beijing is not satisfied with the performance of the new 12,000-strong Pakistani army and naval units created in 2016 to protect CPEC projects.
The CPEC project is a $50 billion Pakistani component of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The 3,000-kilometre Chinese infrastructure network project is currently under construction in Pakistan. Its goal is to connect the ports in Gwadar and Karachi to China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region by land.
Team BharatShakti
