Pakistan’s Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal has acknowledged that the country failed to capitalise on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and that Chinese investors were compelled to withdraw due to attempts by the previous government to “scandalise" their projects.

Speaking at the inaugural session of the DataFest Conference organised by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Tuesday, Iqbal said Pakistan’s economy had repeatedly missed opportunities to take off and “dropped the catch of the game-changer CPEC."

The remarks, reported by The Express Tribune, mark a rare public acknowledgement by a senior cabinet minister that Pakistan has fallen short of achieving CPEC’s objectives.

Worth an estimated USD 60 billion, CPEC is a key component of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BR

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