Federal Minister for Pakistan Railways (PR), Khawaja Saad Rafique, said that Pakistan and Uzbekistan should focus on establishing direct rail and air links that would go a long way towards improving trade activities.
The minister for railways stated this while talking to Uzbek Ambassador H.E. Furkat A Sidikov who called on him at the Ministry of Railways on Friday. During the meeting both sides agreed on the need for mutual cooperation.
Saad Rafique said that direct communication links, besides improving trade activities, would promote people-to-people contacts.
The areas of cooperation between Pakistan and Uzbekistan were identified as intervention and cooperation in the existing railway systems, including upgrades on the carriage making factory here and the Locomotive Factory in Risalpur. Another area for cooperation is connectivity through ML I(Karachi to Jalalabad),ML II (Kotri to Attock) and ML III (Rohri to Zahedan).The third area of interest was stated to be collaborative training programmes at the Lahore Railway Training Centre and Tashkent Railway University.
Uzbekistan is interested in CPEC. Uzbekistan has constructed 11 railway bridges in Afghanistan in the interests of regional connectivity. As of 2008, Uzbekistan had 3,645 kilometers of rail lines, about 620 kilometers of which were electrified. A large percentage of the system’s track requires major repair.
The main line is the portion of the Trans-Caspian Railroad that connects Tashkent with the Amu Darya. There are rail links with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Turkmenistan. Suburban traffic only exists around Tashkent.
