New Gwadar International Airport during construction in 2022 (Image: Wikicommons)
Pakistan‘s New Gwadar International Airport is well-equipped and modern but several months after its completion, the giant site has not been used. The £187million airport, financed entirely by China, is yet to open its doors, having been completed in October 2024.
The gleaming new facility is in stark contrast to the humble surroundings of the city of Gwadar and the wider Balochistan province where it sits, in the south-west of Pakistan. For 10 years, Beijing has ploughed money into Balochistan and Gwadar as part of a multibillion-pound China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project that connects Xinjiang province with the Arabian Sea. The white elephant airport has a capacity for 400,000 passengers and yet sits in a city of just 90,000 without its own electricity.
Gwadar is a small port city (Image: Getty)
Power in Gwadar comes from neighbouring Iran or solar panels. Worse still, there isn’t even enough clean drinking water.
“This airport is not for Pakistan or Gwadar. It is for China, so they can have secure access for their citizens to Gwadar and Balochistan”, Azeem Khalid, an international relations expert who specialises in Pakistan-China ties, told the Independent.
Locals are reportedly unsettled by the intereference from China, and the Pakistani state, keen to protect Beijing’s investments, has stepped up its military footprint in the city to quell dissenting voices.
According to reports, the city is littered with checkpoints, barbed wire, troops, barricades, and watchtowers. Roads are often closed for several days a week to allow Pakistani VIPs and Chinese workers to pass through.
A member of staff cleans the floor at the airport (Image: Getty)
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Gwadar native Khuda Bakhsh Hashim, 76, told the news outlet: “Nobody used to ask where we are going, what we are doing, and what is your name.
“We used to enjoy all-night picnics in the mountains or rural areas.”
“We are asked to prove our identity, who we are, where we have come from,” he added. “We are residents. Those who ask should identify themselves as to who they are.”
