China starts work to identify location for Kashgar railway link

Officials have been asked to carry out research to identify a location for railway connectivity between Pakistan and China, as local people are enthusiastic about plans to build a railway network to connect Kashgar in Xinjiang with the Pakistani port of Gwadar.

“We’ve already been asked to carry out research into the location of a station at Kashgar for the China-Pakistan railway, but a detailed plan and timetable have yet to be drafted,” Wang Yongzhi, deputy commissioner of Kashgar prefecture, was quoted as saying by an English daily.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced in June that Pakistan would like to build new road and rail links to Kashgar and establish a Sino-Pakistani economic corridor.

If an overland link were to be established, GwadarPort would become the starting point for deliveries of oil and natural gas to Xinjiang, China Daily reported. Wang said China’s long experience of construction work on plateaus could prove invaluable if the decision was made to build a railway across the Pamir Plateau.

Also, Pakistan will soon be embarking on an ambitious plan to expand its strategic road, rail network to ease travel and facilitate trade with the CentralAsianRepublics, China and other regional countries.

Among the eight agreements inked during Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s visit to China, one is the $18 billion project to build a road and rail track, including string of tunnels in the mountainous track passing over a height 4,693 meters to be used as part of the Pakistan-China Economic corridor.

The economic corridor, planned to boost trade between the two countries, will use the existing 1,300km long Karakoram Highway (KKH), including a new section that is currently being realigned due to construction of the Diamer Bhasha Dam, and a 700km extension further south up to the Gwadar Port, for fast transportation of goods.

Nawaz Sharif has called for an early completion of the repair and rehabilitation works on Karakorum Highway, calling it of utmost importance.

He also urged the Chinese companies to accomplish the rehabilitation work on AttabadLake and surrounding areas.

If established, the link would also give China shortest route for its exports to the Gulf, Africa and Europe, prompting Premier Li Keqaing to say that China had strategic interest in this corridor. The KKH currently links Kashgar in China’s Xinjiang Autonomous region with Abbottabad.

Pakistan and China also agreed to work on construction of a motorway between Lahore and Karachi.

Currently Lahore is linked with a M-3 Motorway with Faisalabad, while work on M-4 Faisalabad-Multan section is underway. The previous cabinet early this year approved the award of contract to the Frontier Works Organisation for the construction of the 136 kms long M-9 Motorway to link Karachi with Hyderabad. However, work on the remaining sections south of Multan is yet to start.