By Hamid Mahmood ISLAMABAD, May 26 (INP-WealthPK): Work on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor projects has gathered pace in the recent weeks, WealthPK has learnt. Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal recently said that his top priority was to expedite the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects in order to restore Chinese investors’ trust in the government’s policies. He also stated that the present government would engage China in the same manner as it did in 2013. Ahsan Iqbal also called for the inclusion of the Karachi Circular Railway in the CPEC portfolio and sought Chinese support in the development of a desalination plant in Pakistan's most-populated city. Adnan Khan, a socio-economic development specialist, said in an interview with WealthPK that the new government was accelerating the CPEC projects. “The new government's first objective is to speed up the CPEC projects in order to regain Chinese investors' trust.” He added it's sad that no Special Economic Zones (SEZs) have been established in the previous four years, which is not good for Pakistan’s economy. Under the second phase of CPEC, Pakistan has embarked on a new path of fast growth. Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif is determined to breathe new life into the CPEC and the Sino-Pak relations, which is a positive indication for both the nations bound by decades’ long brotherly relations. In this respect, the two friendly nations have begun rigorous negotiations, partnerships, and coordination at the highest political, diplomatic, and last but not the least, ministerial levels, to invigorate CPEC development. In the early phase of the CPEC, newly-elected Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif – then chief minister of Punjab – played a significant role in establishing several energy and infrastructure projects. He was extensively involved in negotiating infrastructure projects which were completed during the early-harvest phase of the CPEC initiative. He has now restarted laying focus on the multi-billion-dollar programme. The SEZs were expected to be completed by 2020, according to the initial CPEC plan, but there has been no movement on them in the previous four years, according to the minister. He added that the interior ministry should offer perfect security to the Chinese working in Pakistan. The newly established government's watchword has been the rapid recovery of CPEC with pressing concerns like security, payment delays, mismanagement and bureaucratic overlap being addressed as quickly as feasible. These developments have indicated that Pakistan is taking a paradigm change from geopolitics to geoeconomics. The aggressive start of the CPEC’s Phase-II should ideally focus on public-private partnerships in order to attract foreign direct investment, and also involve domestic banks and financial institutions in making investments.