Is Pakistan’s bid to kick-start Chinese-run Gwadar port putting ‘cart before the horse’?

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s cabinet set the plan in motion on September 12 by ordering federal agencies to direct half of the commodities they import annually – amounting to hundreds of thousands of tonnes of fertilisers, sugar and wheat grain – through Gwadar port.

By doing so, Pakistan was “trying to kill three birds with one stone”, said Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute of the Wilson Centre, a Washington think tank.

In addition to generating more revenue for its struggling economy, Islamabad was seeking to show Beijing that it was “committed to operationalising a critical Chinese investment”, he said.