Pakistan needed roads, power plants, transmission lines and a basic re-set of economic religion. The corridor scored higher than a good number of critics score in that test. The larger project has been justified as an outlay of more than 60 billion of investment in China as well as the utterances of the Pakistani officials have already credited CPEC with around 25.4 billion of direct investment and about 236,000 of new job creation. The most obvious is the introduction of 9,504 megawatts of CPEC energy projects to the grid which have taken the load shedding load that had equally crippled the homes and industry.

However, this time round the onus of realization falls on Pakistan that it needs to treat CPEC as a construction catalogue and not as an economic strategy 2026. This is what CPEC 2.0 is all about. Both, Islamabad and Beijing have already shown that the corridor is experiencing a new dimension, that is based on industrial cooperation, innovation, green development, and fine quality growth rather than project volume. This change is evident in the official common statements of 2024 and 2026 as both the sides are in favour of an upgraded CPEC with emphasis on expansion, innovation, green development, and openness. The change is also suitable to the opening of the 15th Five Year Plan of China, in which the high-quality development, the growth of the digital economy and the future improvement of technology should be the priorities of the policy.

In the field of energy, however, this new stage can turn its slogan into substance in one area. The dialogue has been changed by the solar boom in Pakistan. During the first four months of 2025, Reuters, who used Ember data, reported that solar contributed 25.3 percent to the utility electricity in Pakistan, the biggest source of electricity in the nation. By 2024, imports of Chinese solar-modules in Pakistan rose to 16.6 gigawatts and by April 2025 it had reached another 10 gigawatts. Pakistan was exporting around 12 percent solar products in China at this time, which has risen to as much as 2 percent in 2022. This is not a minor trend. The fact that the green transition of Pakistan has already begun at the bottom up because of the price, demand and necessity is evidence.

That is why Green CPEC is significant. Pakistan cannot remain such a massive importer of the imported panels upon which the value added, the skilled job and the exporting capacity lies in other nations. The 2026 conference that was organised by the Pakistan China Institute under Green CPEC Alliance was heading in the right direction with the diagnosis. What Pakistan desires to get to attract solar manufacturing as opposed to solar shipments is bankable industrial policy, plausible protection of investors, ready Special Economic Zones, and predictable implementation. Chinese corporations wait already. Hebei Juhang Energy Technology Group has publicly expressed their interest in setting up a massive manufacturing unit of solar panels in Pakistan with the aim of not only serving the local market, but also the foreign markets. This would make the corridor a value chain.

The industry can be considered as the same. Other countries such as Pakistan have been debating Special Economic Zones, relocation of industries and export led growth over the years. Talking is no longer enough. Only when these industrial zones offer a source of reliable energy, efficiency in habits, legal security, access of skilled labour force and fast delivery logistic will become an issue. Otherwise, they are closed grounds with huge billboards. A more demanding parameter against which the CPEC 2.0 can be judged, though, should be the number of proclaimed areas or the amount of executed export deals, the quantity of suppliers incorporated in Pakistan and the variety of technologies being transferred into the country. Even Pakistani officials are now thinking of Phase II in terms of industrial parks, location of industries, mining, agriculture and development of human resource rather than headline making ribbon cuttings.

The electronic aspect of the story is equally very important, but more sensitive. A bold and welcome move can be seen by the declaration of 1 billion national AI campaign by 2030 by Pakistan that provides training of AI in schools, 1000 fully funded PhD scholarships and education of one million non-IT professionals. Nevertheless, speeches, expos and certain pilot labs in urban areas do not build the digital corridor. The question of whether it will improve customs, logistics, industrial planning, farm productivity, tax administration and competitiveness of small and medium firms will be only relevant. It means that the digital agenda has to serve the industrial one. As long as CPEC 2.0 links Chinese capital and technology to Pakistani talent and good reform, the digital pillar may become a reality. Otherwise, it is only going to be decorative.

It does not all of this imply that traditional infrastructure is no longer a relevant consideration. It means that infrastructure must now be economically proving. The long ML 1 upgrade project is not in vain as there is a problem with the freight throughput. Phase 1 (Karachi to Rohri) is expected to begin in July 2026, and the project will be supported by the Asian Development Bank, as well as the involvement of the market has already been initiated. Gwadar still matters too. The 2024 joint statement of Pakistan and China stated that the New Gwadar International Airport was finished, and the resurgence of upgrading port, water, power, and the industrial zone. But only Gwadar can be successful when it does not represent something geopolitical, but as a living logistics and processing ecosystem.

© Eurasia Review