South Asia Investor Review

Pakistan has recently launched 5G wireless service in multiple cities and closed financing on the 306 kilometer 6-lane Sukkur-Hyderabad M6 motorway. In addition, Pakistan is seeing significant increase in the utilization of its Gwadar and Karachi ports after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz due to the US-Iran war. This will help open the trade routes from Pakistan to Central Asia via Iran, bypassing unstable Afghanistan. It has the potential to eventually make Pakistan a major transshipment hub for the region extending to the land-locked Central Asian Republics. Another major news is the Asian Development Bank financing of cross-border connectivity of the power grid and digital networks. These developments are expected to substantially enhance economic activity in the country, in spite of the short-term negative impact of the energy crisis, particularly in oil and gas imports.  5G Launch: Wireless carriers Jazz and Zong have launched 5G services across Pakistan in March 2026. ...

‘Digital Silk Road’ project is one of 12 sub-themes agreed to at the recently concluded  Belt Road Forum 2019 (BRF19)  in Beijing. This state-of-the-art information superhighway will involve laying fiber optic cables in Pakistan which will connect with China in the north and link with Africa and the Arab World via undersea cable to be laid from Gwadar Deep Sea Port built as part of  China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) . The global project will include 5G wireless networks deployment in BRI (Belt Road Initiative) member nations. China-Pakistan Fiber Optic Cable Route Fiber Optic Cables: The laying of 820 kilometer long China-Pakistan  fiber optic cable  has already been laid between the city of Rawalpindi, Pakistan in the south and the Khunjerab Pass, China in the north  and operational since July, 2018. By 2020, the 6,299 kilometers of underwater cables will extend to Djibouti from Gwadar and form the Digital Silk Route between Asia and Afric...