BEIJING, Nov. 6 (INP): Pakistan ambassador to China Khalid Masood deplored the malicious propaganda by the Indian lobby against China-Pakistan Economic corridor (CEEC). There is no logic in saying that the CPEC will only benefit elite class. While rejecting a report of Indian Think-Tank, Khalid said the CPEC is a major component of China’s ambitious plans to revive trade along the Silk Road. He was talking to media on the sidelines of the Belt and Road Innovation and Development Forum in Hong Kong. “It’s a project for the common good of people,” he said. The corridor encompasses US$62 billion in strategic infrastructure and energy projects across Pakistan, and is a major element in China’s “Belt and Road” international trade initiative. As part of the program, China has pledged to build coal and hydroelectric power plants, and construct an oil pipeline between the Pakistani port of Gwadar and Kashgar in China’s far west, reports South China Morning Post on Monday. Khalid’s comments came after Rajiv Kumar, vice-chairman of the National Institution for Transforming India, a think tank affiliated with the Indian government, said the corridor could only benefit the Pakistani elite and Islamabad would use its ties with Beijing to counter New Delhi’s influence. Meanwhile, speaking at the Belt and Road Innovation and Development Forum held in Hong Kong, he CPEC with its linkage with other similar initiatives under the Belt and Road provides opportunities to the member states of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to boost their energy export and trade potential by using Pakistan as a transit point. He said, the Belt and Road Initiative has become a key instrument to regional and international connectivity. Just like the historical Silk Road, it offers wide avenues of cooperation based on mutual prosperity and cooperation. It is set to bring together different regions and shrink the distance among civilizations,” he added. The Ambassador said that Pakistan, with a long coastline, is a key transit point on the Maritime Silk Road. The CPEC is a 3,000 kilometer network of roads, railways and pipelines to transport oil and gas from southern Pakistan’s Gwadar Port to Kashgar city in Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. SCO Secretary General Rashid Alimov on the occasion said the organization, covering 60 percent of the Eurasian continent and nearly half the global population, has created a huge space for cooperation within Eurasia.”According to the statistics in 2016, the overall GDP of countries related to our organization reached $15 trillion, while the overall trade volume reached $5.9 trillion,” Alimov said. “Along with the joining of India and Pakistan, we have become the biggest comprehensive regional organization.”SCO is an inter-governmental organization founded in Shanghai in 2001, whose member states are India, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. INP/J/AH/LK