Here we go again. You guys from India will NEVER change or even read through someone's statement in details. Have you ever created a strategy across the globe for a multi-national organization, the WB or the IMF or an entire country's system? I don't get that 1% from your post. But yet, you are trying to sound like the Chief Economist of India, amazing what one billion people connected through the internet can do. They can derail every single thread in the entire globe by sounding like experts!! Just for the future reference, when you are reading my post, try to see my point. I don't write to do propaganda for Pakistan like you guys do for India. I am just writing to state the facts.
India and Pakistan's economies have NO comparison as the size of the Indian economy is about 29 times bigger than Pakistan so let's understand that.
Second, whether India grows to 7% or 22%, its economic system is entirely independent of Pakistan's, and vis-a-vis. Not every conversation requires an India - Pakistan comparison. In some of the things, India, due to her size, population and market at this point in time, is way ahead of Pakistan and will always remain much ahead.
Having said that, now Pakistan's economy is much smaller, but so is the population. She has to feed and bring up their middle class which is 4 times smaller than India's. So what they can achieve with mere 4-5%, India, due to its size and population, has to achieve with 8-9%. That's just a fact.
And the project won't take 15 years. This is a 5-7 year project and you can count on it. I've been monitoring progress around some of other Chinese projects and these guys are building stuff at a much faster pace than a lot of nations. Plus, the cash infusion, job growth, real estate development around the trade route will start to happen in a year or so. A couple of million jobs, in construction, engineering and all other areas, with the cash inflow will be more than enough to jump start the economy.
In the next 5 years, Pakistan will become a competition to India's educated labor. There is no doubt about it. No one's saying that India would lose all the money and investments to Pakistan, that's a crazy idea. But India will lose about $ 10-20 billion over time. That's probably nothing for India, but for Pakistan, it would be additional icing on the cake. Add pass through revenue through the trading corridor, it would really take Pakistan's economy to the top fifteen. Its a 7-10 year game at this time.