China has said that there was no slowdown of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects and the two countries have identified three key areas to promote the USD 50 billion initiative as it entered a "new phase".
The CPEC, which connects China's Xinjiang province with the strategic Gwadar Port in Balochistan, is the flagship project of Chinese President Xi Jinping's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
The 3,000-km CPEC is aimed at connecting China and Pakistan with rail, road, pipelines and optical fibre cable networks. India has been severely critical of the CPEC as it passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).
"CPEC is running according to our satisfaction and there is no slowdown in it," Chinese ambassador to Pakistan Yao Jing said at a seminar titled 'Friends of Silk Road', organised by the Pakistan-China Institute, in Islamabad on Sunday.
