Islamabad: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has offered to finance the USD 10 billion Karachi-Peshawar railway Main Line-1 (ML-1) project, news sources reported on February 9.
The international lending agency offered to execute the project in the absence of an agreement with China. As per the sources, Pakistan has refused to take up the offer, citing the ongoing negotiations with China under the government-to-government (G2G) agreement. Speaking to the media, Planning Secretary Syed Zafar Ali Shah said that the federal government is interested in carrying out the multibillion-dollar project with China at the insistence of the latter. He said that the government would accommodate and take up the ADB’s offer in some other project.
It is important to note that the ADB previously offered to execute the ML-1 project but was declined at that time as well. At that time, Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal had said that the government would utilise the ADB’s offer in other development projects, such as the Central Asian Regional Economic Cooperation Programme.
Nauman Ahmad is an imaginative Pisces whose love for literature and nature is unparalleled. When he's not reading or hiking, he's sleeping and eating, which gives him plenty of energy for his next adventure.
