Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal presented Pakistan’s vision for transforming its Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation transport corridors into integrated economic arteries at the 25th CAREC Ministerial Conference in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, arguing that the country’s geographic position at the intersection of Central Asia, South Asia, and maritime routes makes it uniquely placed to support regional trade, digital integration, and the development of cross-border value chains. Speaking at the conference, Iqbal said CAREC Corridors 5 and 6 held the potential to link Central Asia directly to Pakistan’s Arabian Sea ports while generating sustained economic activity along the entire route, provided the approach shifted from viewing them as transit pathways to treating them as platforms for investment, employment, and export development.
The minister outlined a comprehensive physical upgrade agenda to make this vision operational. He called for the completion of the transport chain through upgraded CAREC roads, modernised border facilities at Torkham and Chaman, improved rail freight capacity through the proposed ML-1 upgrade, and stronger linkages between existing transport infrastructure and dry ports and seaports. He also proposed the establishment of logistics and production hubs at strategic locations along the corridors, incorporating cold storage, packaging, warehousing, and light manufacturing facilities that could help convert transit volume into exports and local employment rather than simply passing goods through without capturing value.
On the digital side, Iqbal called for greater connectivity across the CAREC region and proposed that Pakistan’s Single Window system could serve as a foundation for integrating digital trade processes with regional partners and reducing the burden of paperwork at border crossings. He said border procedures needed to be redesigned around advanced electronic information submission, compatible operating hours between neighbouring countries, coordinated processes, and fewer repetitive inspection checks, all of which would reduce delays and lower the cost of doing business across borders. He also recommended measuring corridor performance through concrete indicators including border wait times, end-to-end delivery durations, local employment generated, and the participation rates of small and medium-sized enterprises in cross-border trade activity.
Iqbal called on CAREC member countries to coordinate the planning and development of cross-border projects, adopt common technical standards, and align investment and construction timelines to avoid the mismatches that have historically slowed regional infrastructure programmes. He highlighted the Asian Development Bank as a potential facilitator for mobilising financing, including private sector capital, for cross-border projects that no single country would have sufficient incentive to develop independently. His address positioned Pakistan’s connectivity agenda within a broader multilateral framework, making the case that the country’s trade and infrastructure development goals are most effectively pursued as part of a regionally coordinated effort rather than through bilateral arrangements alone.
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