In November 2016, Water. Desalination + reuse (Faversham House) reported, citing the Express Tribune, that Pakistan's Central Development Working Party had approved a seawater reverse osmosis plant for the port city of Gwadar. It was sized at about 23,000 m³/day (five million gallons per day) and put at PKR 5,071 million (US$48.4 million), with China expected to cover roughly 90%. The plant was to provide about a third of Gwadar's water, chiefly for industry, and would likely pass to a private investor on completion.
The approval tied desalination to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and showed how port and industrial growth on arid coasts was driving demand for seawater reverse osmosis.