Pakistan Railways’ Mainline 1 (ML-1) will receive additional funding of $8 billion under CPEC, increasing the project’s the total funding to $54 billion. China had originally committed to a $46 billion amount.
Previously, Beijing has enhanced funding for upgrading Pakistan Railways by $5.5 billion.
Will Be Completed on Priority
According to The News, China intends to complete the rail project on priority basis within 3 to 4 years, without involving any third party loans or donors.
Third party loaners would delay the project by introducing different procedural rules and requirements.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) may be withdrawing its $1 billion to $2.5 billion credit line for the ML-1. The bank will make a formal decision on this in the next few weeks when officials from the ADB visit Islamabad.
PM to Visit China for OBOR
Besides the ADB, Chinese banks are also interested in financing the upgrades for Pakistan Railway. The financing agreement is due to be finalized at the upcoming visit of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to China. He will be going at the international conference for the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative in May this year.
A few days ago, Minister for Planning Ahsan Iqbal mentioned that the Chinese want to up the pace of the rail network upgrade. They also wanted some of their banks to pay for the upgrade with the final decision for the matter coming soon, according to the Minister.
CAREC initative
In the beginning, ADB was investing into the project under their Central Asian Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) initiative.
Read More: Billions from CPEC, CAREC Will Fund Pakistan Railways’ Upgradation
The ML-1 is a 461 km track connecting Peshawar and Lahore. 411 km of the ML-1 will be upgraded with a new signal and telecommunication system. The lines will be dualized and a 53 km section from Kaluwal and Pindora will be realigned and dualised.
Can Pakistan economy run without loans and fundings? shame to PML-N policies. Too much loans may hurt our country in long run
I’m starting to feel a little skeptic about all those loans and their “dangers” after what I’ve recently heard and seen about American economy.
Their federal debt is an astonishing 20.1 TRILLION USD and I don’t think that we’re hearing any sort of news about their economy collapsing due to debt ( Not taking Trump into account of course) and so the loan argument just feels a bit weak to me nowadays.
Do enlighten and correct me where I am wrong though.
These views held by me are subject to the ‘Availability bias’ and hence, can be wrong altogether or slightly incorrect.
You don’t know a single thing about 2007-8’s market crash. Their economy already collapsed once! And it’s due to collapse again in near future.
Better first read up on their loans and derivatives system which crashed the market!
Well, i know for one that the market did crash in 2007-8 so, I do know a single thing about it XD
But yes, other than that, my knowledge on it is 0. Can you point some source where I could better understand the reasons and effects of the different factors having a role in the crash?
I can recommend you some documentaries on this subject because articles/books on this are very dry. All documentaries are a must watch!
Capitalism – A Love Story: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1232207/
Collapse: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1503769/
Inside Job: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1645089/?ref_=nm_knf_t4
Please watch hidden secret of money. It consist of 7 episodes by Mike Meloney. You can find it on youtube.
This series of video will help you to understand the current global financial system . This system statrted after WW2. And its about to crash in near future and this time a crash may end dollar era . All this is told by Mike Meloney in his video channel. And i believe him .
Sure will do!
I can recommend you some documentaries on this subject because articles/books on this are very dry. All documentaries are a must watch!
1. Capitalism – A Love Story
2. Collapse
3. Inside Job
Thanks for the help!
Yes, economy can run much better with the injection of money and upgradation of infrastructure. You should be thankful that someone is here (China) to rescue your economy and giving huge funds without big guarantee. Once it is done, you will see how things bring new business and upgrade standards of living of citizen. Be optimistic… Financing is not a bad thing at all, if planned well – that China is already taking care.
let the corruption begins, and saad raafiq kids bank balances rise.