On the refusal by the Malaysian government, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has expressed its willingness to finance Rs 22 billion Faisalabad-Khanewal Motorway (M-4) project, a top government official said on Thursday.
"We have taken up the matter with ADB and the bank has expressed its willingness to provide financial help in this regard," Communication Minister Shamim Siddiqui told Business Recorder. Initially, Pakistan and Malaysia had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU), as latter had agreed to construct some 184-Km long Faisalabad-Khanewal Motorway on Built, Operate, Transfer (BOT) basis.
Later on, the Malaysian government pulled itself out of the project, saying it was not viable to undertake the project on BOT option. Pakistan government has so far failed to convince Malaysian government to construct M-4 despite high level manoeuvrings. Talking to this correspondent, communication minister confirmed that the Malaysian government was no more working on the project. "Yes it (Malaysia) is out of the project," he replied.
Siddiqui said Pakistan government would itself undertake the construction of mega project. "The government would itself undertake the project and work would be started later this year any moment," he added.
The government, he continued, has chalked out all the plans in this regard. The minister said the government also plans to carry out M-5 project - Khanewal to Sukkur - and then the next phase will be Sukkur to Shikarpur and Shikarpur to Rato Dero. It is hoped that M-4 project would be constructed in four years time.
Communication minister, who has visited Malaysia recently, said the Malaysian minister for works would visit Pakistan next month to find new avenues of cooperation between the two sides.
Comments
Comments are closed.