Gwadar port
What is the strategic importance of Gwadar port?
Where is Gwadar port located?
What is the history of Gwadar’s ownership?
Who funded the initial development of Gwadar port?
What challenges has Gwadar port faced from the local population?
Gwadar port, deep-sea port in Pakistan at the terminal point of the bilateral China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) infrastructure program. Gwadar port’s importance lies in its strategic location for maritime commerce and naval activity.
Location
The coastal town Gwadar, in Pakistan’s western province Balochistan, sits at the gateway to the Persian Gulf, about 47 miles (75 km) east of Iran, making it one of the westernmost ports—alongside the Iranian port of Chabahar, 110 miles (180 km) west—on the international shipping route between East Asia and the Strait of Hormuz. Gwadar is also 295 miles (475 km) west of Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city. The port is on a peninsula protruding into the Arabian Sea and joined to the mainland by a sandy isthmus that is 7 miles (about 12 km) long.
Although Gwadar is along the coast and near potential energy and mineral resources, it is isolated from Pakistan’s economic centers by mountainous terrain, and the surrounding natural resources remain untapped. The area is sparsely populated, with fewer than 40 people per square mile (15 people per square kilometer) living in Gwadar district. The port thus has greater significance for international trade than for Pakistan’s domestic market.
History and development
At the time of Pakistan’s creation through the 1947 partition of India, the Gwadar peninsula remained under British control as an enclave of Oman. The sultanate of Oman had long been a premier maritime power along the Gulf of Oman and had controlled the Gwadar peninsula since the late 18th century. When the United States Geological Survey conducted a survey of Pakistan’s coastline in 1954 at Pakistan’s request, the report recommended a deep-sea port on the Gwadar peninsula. Pakistan then approached Oman to transfer the territory, and in September 1958 the United Kingdom approved Oman’s sale of Gwadar to Pakistan, facilitated by funds provided by Aga Khan IV, the leader of the small Ismāʿīliyyah community that maintains a stake in the peninsula. Although the Pakistani government repeatedly proposed plans over the next half century to develop a deep-sea port at Gwadar, it continually struggled to find funding for the project.
In 1999 China entered into discussions with Pakistan to begin developing the port. After a delay prompted by the U.S.-led invasion of neighboring Afghanistan in 2001, Pakistan secured an agreement with China in March 2002 to fund most of the Gwadar port’s first phase of construction, which was completed in December 2006. The second phase, originally set to be constructed by a company from Singapore, failed to get off the ground. In February 2013, just months before China announced its broader Belt and Road Initiative, the planned second phase of construction was handed over to a Chinese holding company. Li Keqiang, who became China’s premier in March of that year, visited Pakistan in May to discuss expanding development in Gwadar beyond the port alone. The energy and infrastructure projects that came out of those discussions laid the foundation for what became known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
Although Gwadar port’s construction predates CPEC by several years, the port serves as the project’s southwestern terminal. The connection of the port to China’s Uyghur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang, via new road and infrastructure development in Pakistan, would allow Chinese imports and exports to bypass the Strait of Malacca, a potential choke point in China’s supply chain vulnerable to Indian or American naval blockades. The development of infrastructure in and around the port is among CPEC’s core components.
The development of Gwadar port and the surrounding region has been met with protest by some in the local Baloch population, who say the Pakistani government is exploiting the wealth of their underdeveloped region without proper compensation or investment in its people. In March 2024 the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), an insurgent separatist group, targeted government offices in the port complex, setting off bombs and engaging security forces in a gunfight. Two security personnel and eight BLA militants were reported killed. Commercial operations were not disrupted, and the Pakistani army considered the attack thwarted.
