BEIJING – China to help upgrade Pakistan’s train network to overhaul itscolonial-era rail infrastructure.
For software businessman Farrukh Malik, the change was palpable. As heclambered aboard the 22-hour express service from coastal Karachi to thenorthern capital, Islamabad, Malik, 40, said he’d been a passenger on theline since he was a child. “The introduction of trains like Green Linewhich has lesser stops and runs strictly as per schedule is a greatdifference,”’ he said as the train whistled to announce its 10 pm scheduleddeparture.
Beijing is set to upgrade a 1,163-miles track from Karachi to Peshawar nearthe Afghan border with an $8 billion loan to Pakistan. It’s part of ChinesePresident Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road trade initiative, which includes $60billion of badly-needed works financed in Pakistan.
Pakistan’s interior minister Ahsan Iqbal said in a statement on Wednesdaythat the first phase of the work would start this year.
In the past decade, the nation’s rail network had become a byword forcorruption, delays and filth. Now the unprofitable state-owned PakistanRailways has doubled its revenue to Rs 40.1 billion ($362 million) in thepast five years and aims to do so again over the same time period, ParveenAgha, secretary of Pakistan Railways, said in an interview in Islamabad.
“This is one of the biggest opportunities for us,” Agha said. “This is theupgradation of the entire railway system.”
To help ease increasing congestion in Pakistan’s second-largest city, a$1.6 billion metro-line in Lahore — funded by Chinese banks — is scheduledto open before this year’s vote. In total, Islamabad says it hasrehabilitated more than 300 locomotives, over 1,000 passenger coaches,nearly 5,000 freight wagons and 31 stations. Pakistan also purchased 75high-powered locomotives last year in a $413.5 million deal with GeneralElectric Co.
The drive is already attracting more passengers, up 25% to over 52 millionpeople since 2013. Working through the carriages, 40-year-old Rana IftikharAhmad has been selling snacks on trains for last 15 years and said hissales have grown as much as 50% in recent years. Five years ago a trainfrom Karachi would take four days to get to Lahore, he said. That sameroute now takes just over half-a-day on the Green Line.
“Things were so backward, now we are reaching our destinations on time,”Ahmad said as the train rattled along the verdant Punjabi countryside. “Nowmore passengers are using the rail and so our sales have increased.”
The government is also eyeing increased freight trade. With nationalelections scheduled for July and with the economy facing headwinds due towidening external deficits, Pakistan wants to increase exports to Chinalink> , Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan andeven arch-rival India through rail links, according to plans seen byBloomberg.