On Wednesday, December 13, 2023, Mr. Nadeem Javaid, Chief Economist, Govt. of Pakistan delivered a lecture to the participants of 34^th SMC on “CPEC as a Harbinger of Regional Connectivity: Its Strategic and Economic Ramifications”. The guest speaker started by explaining the rationale behind CPEC. The One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative, of which CPEC is a component, he said was China Awakening as a counterweight to US-led ‘Trans Alliance’ alliance CPFC, the guest speaker elucidated, is a 21^st Century Maritime-Silk-road, an infrastructure development strategy stretching from Asia to Europe. The guest speaker said OBOR is going to serve as connection of policy, roads, trade, currency and especially of hearts (5 goals by President Xi). He displayed different maps to highlight the actual route and how the route under CPFC provided saving of 9,535 miles of distance to China so as to make trade easier and more convenient. While CPEC was planned to bring economic prosperity to Pakistan, it was more strategically crucial for China. The guest speaker also talked about Phase I and Phase II of CPEC. He informed the audience that so far 12 projects worth 22.8 billion had been completed under Phase E. Majority of these projects were in the power sector. However, the second phase was focused more on socio-economic development projects. The guest speaker also threw some light. on the negative narrative surrounding CPEC, which also caused delays in speedy implementation of projects. He ended his discourse by stressing the need to take advantage of envisaged benefits of CPEC, which he said would happen only with political stability in the country.