Int'l institutions admitted betterment in Pakistan's economy: Sheikh Rasheed

RAWALPINDI: Federal Minister for Railways Sheikh Rasheed said Wednesday that the international institutions have admitted witnessing improvements in the Pakistan’s economy, ARY News reported.

Sheikh Rasheed, while addressing an event of Rawalpindi Chamber of Commerce and Industries (RCCI), said that Moody’s reported better economic results from Pakistan. He said that the country is heading towards development under the leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan.

The politician said that he became a member of Rawalpindi’s chamber of commerce. The minister detailed that he had become the RCCI member after selling his motorcycle. He continued that he later became a prominent silk exporter but prioritised politics over the business.

Rasheed said that he had performed duties as federal minister for eight times but never grabbed extortion from any trader.

While elaborating the benefits of the ML-1 rail project, he said that the journey between Rawalpindi to Karachi will be shrunk to eight hours after its completion. Moreover, it will create more than 100,000 job opportunities in the country, he added.

Read: Sheikh Rasheed, Chinese railway officials discuss ML-1 project

Rasheed asked RCCI members to expand trade as he is ready to hand over Rawalpindi’s dry port to them.

ML-1 project

On April 28, Pakistan and China had reached an agreement on the multibillion mainline-1 project of the Pakistan Railways.

Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad and Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Yao Jing signed the Declaration for Preliminary Design of ML-1, phase I.

Prime Minister Imran Khan and his Chinese counterpart Li Keqiang witnessed the signing ceremony.

Under the agreement, Pakistan’s Railways and China’s National Railway Administration will start construction work on this project.

Karachi ML-1 project will be completed in the next five years under which an 1,872 kilometer long track from Peshawar to Karachi will be upgraded, along with fencing of rail trail and construction of bridges and crossings.

It will enhance trains’ average speed up to 120 to 160 kilometers per hour, which at present is only 60 kilometers per hour. It will reduce the travel time from Rawalpindi to Karachi to from 22 hours to ten hours.

The recent agreement is about first phase and preliminary cost of the complete project is about 8.2 bill dollars, to be completed in three phases. The ML-1 project will alone create 20,000 direct and 1,50,000 indirect jobs.