ISLAMABAD: After prolonged delays in securing financing from Beijing threatened to put a strain on a strategic mining project, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has stepped in to fund upgrades to part of Pakistan\u2019s railway system.<\/p>\n
The ADB is in advanced talks to lead the financing of a $2 billion upgrade of a 500-km stretch of the railway line, which had previously been part of the Chinese project, two sources with direct knowledge of the discussions told Reuters.<\/p>\n
The proposed rail upgrade would modernise the track and bridges from the com\u00admercial capital Karachi to Rohri, near Suk\u00adkur, so that trains can run faster.<\/p>\n
In Rohri, the line will meet a branch coming from the area of the Reko Diq mine and will carry the copper concentrate to port.<\/p>\n
The upgrade has become urgent, sour\u00adces said, as it is needed to transport copper ore from the Reko Diq mine currently being developed by Canada\u2019s Barrick Mining Corp.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, ADB announced $410 million in financing for the Reko Diq mine itself, and its president is due to visit Islamabad next week, they said.<\/p>\n
Tim Cribb, Reko Diq\u2019s project director, told Reuters that the government and Barrick would work together on securing financing for the upgrading of the branch coming from the west to Rohri.<\/p>\n
The Reko Diq copper and gold mine is due to enter production in 2028 with anti\u00adcipated annual output of some 200,000 metric tons of copper concentrate.<\/p>\n
One of the world\u2019s largest untapped copper deposits, it is Pakistan\u2019s largest foreign investment in recent years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will have a crisis. How will you evacuate output from Reko Diq? The exhausted line will come under even more pressure,\u201d a senior government official said.<\/p>\n
There was no immediate comment from Pakistan\u2019s railways ministry or China\u2019s foreign ministry.<\/p>\n
The ADB would not confirm the finance package, which is being reported for the first time by Reuters. But it said Pakistan\u2019s government and the regional lender \u201chave regular discussions on railway sector development\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny potential ADB assistance would be subject to comprehensive due diligence and consideration under ADB\u2019s policies and procedures before any commitment is made,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISLAMABAD: After prolonged delays in securing financing from Beijing threatened to put a strain on a strategic mining project, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has stepped in to fund upgrades to part of Pakistan\u2019s railway system. The ADB is in advanced talks to lead the financing of a $2 billion upgrade of a 500-km stretch […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11583,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11582"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11584,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11582\/revisions\/11584"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}