TANVEER AHMED

KARACHI: The federal government has invited Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah to participate in 9th meeting of Joint Cooperation Committee (JCC) of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), scheduled for 6th November 2019 in Islamabad.

Federal and Sindh are governed by rival political parties–Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)–and in recent months both have rarely engaged themselves.

During the visits of Prime Minister Imran Khan to Karachi in October this year, Sindh Chief Minister kept himself at distance by not receiving him at the airport as well as not participating in the official engagements of the prime minister in Karachi.

The federal government, however, invited Sindh Chief Minister for the 9th JCC meeting of CPEC when Federal Minister Planning, Development & Reform Khusro Bakhtyar wrote a letter to the Sindh Chief Minister.

“In order to have constructive, meaningful and fruitful dialogue to ensure qualitative outputs, your participation is requested in 9th JCC, scheduled to be held on 6th November, 2019, the letter indicated.

Appraising Sindh Chief Minister, the federal minister said that CPEC is progressing steadily after overcoming a lot of challenges paving the way for future smooth progress.

The minister also stated that early harvest projects of CPEC are mostly completed and started benefiting the general public.

Moreover, the minister also apprised Sindh Chief Minister that new domains of cooperation have been included like agriculture, industrial development and socio-economic development to take the initiative forward. The minister hoped that new domains of cooperation would be drivers of further dividends for the public.

He also shared the agenda of upcoming 9th JCC meeting with Chief Minister, wherein the proposed projects of the CPEC in Sindh would be presented and discussed.