TORONTO, 28 July — An internationally known Swiss-German firm —-Interglobe— has offered to set up rail link between Karachi and Central Asian states via Afghanistan.
Niamatullah Khan, chief of Pakistan’s largest municipality of Karachi, said this in an interview here on Friday.
Khan, who is currently on a 20-day tour of seven countries, including Canada, said the Swiss-German firm has finalized proposals to link Karachi with Central Asia to help boost trade in the region.
He said the same firm is also working on a proposed $1.2 billion plan to set up a rail network within Karachi on build, operate and transfer (BOT) basis.
The Karachi city Nazim (mayor) said the firm would build the network, operate for some time and hand it over to the local government.
Khan has already visited China, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the US before coming to Toronto last week.
He described his tour as very useful and said that he signed a number of memorandums of understanding with several private sector organizations related to urban transport and construction of houses for people of low-income group in Karachi.
Khan said the Karachi administration was seeking World Bank’s financial assistance to implement a solid waste management project to keep this industrial port city pollution free and clean.
He said his administration was paying full attention to the construction and repair of roads in the sprawling cosmopolitan city of Karachi, which had been the scene of bloody ethnic and sectarian clashes.
“That painful era is over,” he said adding there is hardly any incident of ethnic or sectarian violence now. However, he said there have been isolated incidents of terrorism and these too are being contained. “We are making efforts to revive the beauty of Karachi which was often described as the city of lights.”
Answering a question he said that plans are under way to develop tourist resorts near the beach in Karachi.
