Gwadar is a developing port city in Balochistan, Pakistan, which is situated on the southwestern coast of Pakistan on the Arabian Sea with a population of approximately 50,000.
Gwadar is strategically located between three increasingly important regions: the oil-rich Middle East, heavily populated South Asia and the economically emerging and resource-laden region of Central Asia. Gwadar is the location of the Gwadar Port, a warm-water, deep sea port.
The Gwadar Port was built on a turnkey basis by China. It was inaugurated in the spring of 2007 by then Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf. Gwadar Port is now being expanded into a deep sea port and naval base with Chinese technical and financial assistance. Gwadar Port became operational in 2008 with the first ship to dock bringing 52,000 tonnes of wheat from Canada. Pakistan's Minister of Ports and Shipping, Sardar Nabil Ahmed Khan Gabol, officially inaugurated the port on 21 December 2008.[2China has acknowledged that Gwadar’s strategic value is no less than that of the Karakoram Highway, which helped cement the China-Pakistan relationship. Beijing is also interested in turning it into an energy-transport hub by building an oil pipeline from Gwadar into China's Xinjiang region. The planned pipeline will carry crude oil sourced from Arab and African states. Such transport by pipeline will cut freight costs and also help insulate the Chinese imports from interdiction by hostile naval forces in case of any major war.
Commercially, it is hoped that the Gwadar Port would generate billions of dollars in revenues and create at least two million jobs.[3] In 2007, the government of Pakistan handed over port operations to PSA Singapore for 25 years, and gave it the status of a Tax Free Port for the following 40 years. The main investors in the project are the Pakistani Government and the People's Republic of China, making China's plan to be engaged in many places along oil and gas roads evident
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