Pakistan and Asian Development Bank on Thursday signed a loan agreement of US $ 178 million for National Motorway M-4 Gojra-Shorkot Section Project (62 KM) which also includes grant of £58,850,000 (US $ 90.77 million) to be provided by the Department of International Development (DFID), UK.
Upon the completion, the M-4 motorway will provide a four lane access controlled alternative to the existing narrow and congested routes notably in the heavily trafficked Faisalabad and Khanewal-Multan-Muzffargrah areas. Moreover, the M-4 motorway will extend the already completed M-1, M-2 and M-3 motorways southward and shorten the distance between Multan and twin cities of Islamabad – Rawalpindi in the North. The loan agreement was signed by Secretary Economic Affairs Division (EAD) Muhammad Saleem Sethi and Country Director Asian Development Bank (ADB).
Dr Werner E Liepach. Group Head, DFID in Pakistan, Louise Walker and Member Engineering Coordination, Arshad Mahmood Chaudhry were also present.
Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar hailed signing of the agreement and said it would further strengthen Pak-ADB cooperation for socio-economic development in Pakistan. He also appreciated continued support from DFID in this regard.
In his remarks on the occasion, the secretary economic affairs division thanked ADB and DIFD for providing vital support to Pakistan particularly for efficiency gain from road traffic operation along the national transport corridor. He assured Pakistan’s commitment to mobilise all out efforts and scale up practices for improving and developing inter-provincial linkages to improve local connectivity. The ADB country director assured the government of Pakistan of its support and appreciated the efforts for taking measures to revamp the existing transport and trade infrastructure for improved connectivity to steer the process of development in Pakistan.
