Federal Minister for Pakistan Railways Khawaja Saad Rafique said on Saturday that public-private partnership in transport sector was of high importance as there was enough space to excel in it.
Addressing a seminar on public-private partnership in development of transport infrastructure jointly organised by Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT), Pakistan, and Pakistan Railways, he said maximum benefit should be secured from the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which, he said, was very important for transportation system.
The minister said that good high profile businessmen and partners were required and such people should come forward to work. “We want to improve infrastructure, rolling stock of railways, besides bringing private partners for passenger and freight areas,” he added.
Saad Rafique said that opportunities should be availed as they wanted to outsource three trains. He said after the ML1, they were interested in working on ML2 and ML3. The minister hoped that practical work on ML2 and ML3 would start in two years.
Pakistan Railways (PR) Chief Executive Officer Javed Anwar said that transport played a significant role in the economy of a country and public-private partnership was a good approach in this regard. CILT Executive Honourary Secretary Brig (R) Salahuddin in his welcome address said that some main objectives of the seminar were to emphasise the need of public-private partnership policy in development of infrastructure, particularly related to transport sector and to encourage export sector to participate in Pakistan transport infrastructure development.