China Pakistan Economic Corridor and Pakistan’s energy security: A meta-analytic review

Abstract

China Pakistan Economic Corridor has been touted by many as a gateway to economic prosperity and stability in Pakistan. It accompanies great potential in terms of solving the ongoing energy crisis and eventually leading Pakistan towards energy security. In this respect, a meta-analytic review has been conducted to identify the underlying concerns that can hinder the successful achievement of energy security though China Pakistan Economic Corridor energy projects. This meta-analysis has revealed strong evidence supporting achievement of Pakistan's energy security dream (89%) along with five main distressing factors which are economic burden (22.22%), security threat (38.89%), project completion delays (22.22%), lack of project feasibility studies (22.22%) and provincial conflict (50%). Additionally, statistically significant strong negative correlation between energy security and economic burden is unearthed with Spearman's rho-value of − 0.759. Moreover, strong negative correlation exists between energy security and project completion delays with rho-value of − 0.500 and P-value of 0.035. Also, project feasibility and project completion delays is found to have a very strong positive correlation as well with rho-value of 0.709 and P-value of 0.001. These findings will assist policy makers and strategists in formulating limitation frameworks for the restriction of undesirable influences on energy security from these identified factors.