Research Associate, Centre of Excellence for CPEC (CoE-CPEC), PIDE
Mujtaba Arshad is a Research Associate at the Centre of Excellence for CPEC (CoE-CPEC), Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), Islamabad. He holds an MPhil in Economics from Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. His research interests include CPEC, trade and investment, industrial development, regional connectivity, and export-led economic transformation.
Argues that Iran is the missing western link in CPEC's next phase, and that Pakistan's connectivity strategy must be built to hold through renewed conflict and sanctions, not to depend on their absence.
China's 15th Five-Year Plan is pushing labour-intensive industries up the road. Pakistan needs to be standing there when they arrive.
Pakistan has shown it can make what the world buys. Owning the brand is a harder task, and CPEC 2.0 will not deliver it on its own.
