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China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a mega project, which likely will have both positive and negative impacts on Pakistan including its northern areas, in particularly Gilgit Baltistan. The project’s negative impacts include such as its impact on larger Kashmir issue, fundamental demographic restrictions on the people of the region, neglecting certain areas in the project, forcible acquisition of lands and pollution. Experts considered exposing of politically marginalized region like Gilgit Baltistan to a huge economic project like CPEC dangerous without determining the legal status of that region, clarifying the role in the process and involvement in the project and by not taking opinions of local people into consideration. This research paper concludes that both government and people of Gilgit Baltistan must collaborate and work together to lessen the negative outcomes of the project which will eventually turn the project into a game changer for the country in its real sense.

Keywords: CPEC, China, Pakistan, Gilgit Baltistan, NDRC, CDB, FCR, US Congressional Research Service, EIA, Pakistan Environmental Protection Act.