Pakistan’s Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) has approved the improvement work for the Mainline-1 (ML-1) railway track worth PKR1.137tn ($6.74bn).
In June, Pakistan’s Central Development Working Party (CDWP) gave its approval for the project to upgrade the railway between Karachi and Peshawar at an estimated cost of $7.2bn, following which it referred the project to ECNEC.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
Dawn reported that ECNEC also approved three additional development projects worth PKR114bn ($675m).
The project is part of the multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) agreement.
Around 90% of the expenditure will be given by Chinese banks in the form of loans while the remaining 10% will be provided by the federal government.
According to Reuters, this project is the most expensive project approved by the ECNEC.
US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate?
Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis.
By GlobalDataFor the CPEC corridor, China has planned to allocate $60bn for infrastructure projects in Pakistan.
For the upgrade project, the current 2,655km-long railway tracks will be renovated to allow trains to operate at 165km/h, almost double the current permitted speed.
The capacity of the line will also increase to more than 150 trains on each side daily compared with the current 34.
In a statement, ECNEC stated: “The execution of the project shall be in 3 packages and in order to avoid commitment charges, the loan amount for each package will be separately contracted.”
