ISLAMABAD: The Asian Development Bank will fund upgrades to part of Pakistan’s creaking railway system, replacing China, after prolonged delays in securing financing from Beijing threatened to put a strain on a strategic mining project, two sources said on Friday.
An extensive revamp of 1,800 km (1,118 miles) of railways has been the centerpiece of a $60 billion Chinese investment program in Pakistan announced in 2015 as part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative global infrastructure push. A decade of negotiations, however, have yet to produce a finance package for the rail upgrades — the single biggest project under the program with China. And Pakistan is, meanwhile, struggling to repay Chinese debt owed for other projects.
The ADB is in advanced talks to lead the financing of a $2 billion upgrade of a 500-km stretch of the railway line from Karachi to Rohri in the country’s south that had previously been part of the Chinese project, two sources with direct knowledge of the discussions told Reuters.
The upgrade has become urgent, they said, as it is needed to transport copper ore from the Reko Diq mine currently being developed by Canada’s Barrick Mining Corp.
“We will have a crisis. How will you evacuate output from Reko Diq? The exhausted line will come under even more pressure,” one of the sources, a senior government official, said.
