PAK HYPES UP BEIJING'S $8.5BN PACKAGE

China's $8.5 billion Pakistan package raises questions over delivery and intent.

- ABHINANDAN MISHRA

While Pakistan's media, lawmakers and ministers hailed Beijing's $8.5 billion package announced in the first week of September as proof that the China-Pakistan "iron brotherhood" remains intact, regional observers say the sum and the accompanying Five-Year Action Plan (2025-2029) amount more to a calibrated set of pledges and MoUs than the kind of unconditional, economy-reordering investment once projected.

Islamabad presented the package as the core of a "CPEC 2.0," describing cooperation across infrastructure, energy, industrial zones, digital economy, climate, education and even space technology. Domestic officials emphasised headline projects such as an upgraded ML-1 rail corridor, Khunjerab Pass works and further development at Gwadar.

But observers with access to details said that the $8.5 billion reported in Pakistani statements is largely composed of memoranda of understanding, project commitments and joint-venture pledges - roughly split in public reporting into headline MoUs and a smaller tranche of firm joint-venture financing - rather than a single, immediate cash transfer that would suddenly alter Pakistan's balance sheet.

That distinction, analysts told The Sunday Guardian, matters for any assessment of what Beijing has actually put on the table and how quickly projects will move from paper to construction. The 2025-29 plan sits atop more than a decade of China's public and private pledges to Pakistan under CPEC and the broader Belt and Road Initiative. Early project tallies and government statements listed CPEC's potential scope in the tens of billions - much of which still remains in pipelines and under "envisioned project value."

When measured by realised outbound direct investment and years of disbursed project finance, the cumulative, actual flows look substantially smaller than the headline aggregates, sources noted.