Abstract
For the port development the resources of local community
are used as the greater economic and social benefits that port is
likely to generate payoff to local community in turn in the shape of
job creation, logistics infrastructure and overall regional economic
and social development. Therefore, the port may be developed
considering the economic and social interest of the local community.
Gwadar port was developed in 2001 amid great controversy, mainly
because of its negative fallout to the livelihood of local community.
The aim of the paper was to determine how local community
belonging to different demographic and income groups realized the
importance of the development of port to their overall economic and
social benefits. We composed a sample of 200 respondents who were
involved either in the outcomes of the port activities or affected by
the port development and operation. Our results revealed that
people of Gwadar had great concern to the overall impact of the
port development to socio-economic situation of Gwadar. Results
further showed that due to the overwhelming presence of China, the
local people suspected that Gwadar port has been built not as a
economic and commercial port to boost the local and regional
economy, but on the contrary it was covertly meant to be a strategic
outpost that could be used as part of the Chinese neo-liberal
expansionist policies. Given the geo-strategic location of Gwadar it
is pertinent to maintain that the growing Chinese is beyond the
economic and commercial ones. Instead the question of Gwadar port
being used for strategic purpose is an imminent perception. Gwadar
port caused a great deal to the local fishing industry, livelihood of
the fishermen, and their sociology and economics. Overall our this
research showed that people of Gwadar although were not outright
opponent to the development of port project, but they had their
doubts and suspects on numerous fallout that the port project would
Dr. Manzoor Ahmed, Ms. Latifa Kamal, Mr. Abdul Qayoom. (2014) The Political Economy of Gwadar Port Development: A Perception from Local Community, Hankén , Volume 6, Issue 1.
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