Water tech for the world's needy

Wuhan Dongchuan to use Pakistan experience for projects in B&R economies

Even around 6 am May sunrise in Pakistan's Gwadar Port area, the searing summer heat is palpable, and the day will only get hotter with mercury chasing the 50-degrees-Celsius mark, but Chinese executive Liu Xiaochuan is unfazed.

In fact, the 43-year-old general manager of Wuhan Dongchuan Water Environment Technology Co looks forward to yet another hectic busy day on the China-backed project to provide fresh water to Gwadar's denizens.

In Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting and prayers which spanned May-June this year, their only other respite from heat, it seems, is the deceptively welcome sight of the waters of the Arabian Sea, not very far from the local desert area.

Liu will help provide water supply and teach local employees technical skills required to run the water project in the long term. "Currently, there are no waterlines in the city. So we need to arrange trucks to offer emergency water supplies during the Ramadan period."

In the past, Liu taught international trade to collegians and held part-time jobs at Wuhan Dongchuan, a company his elder brother Liu Chuan founded in 2003.

In 2007, he quit his teaching job and began to work full time with his brother, devoting a major part of his time to local water projects in Pakistan.

Based in Central China's Hubei province, Wuhan Dongchuan has built around seven water projects in Pakistan, including a seawater desalination plant, a sewage treatment project and a pipe network. Currently, it has business in other countries and regions participating in the Belt and Road Initiative, such as Malaysia, Thailand, the Middle East and South America.

For a port that yearns for a bright future and seeks to transform itself into an international city, Gwadar severely lacks the most essential element of life－drinking water.

"On average, its annual precipitation is around 200 millimeters, which is extremely water-deficient," said Liu Chuan, chairman of Wuhan Dongchuan. "The locals usually use trucks to transport drinkable water from hundreds of kilometers away, and they need to pay a high price for that."