JCC on CPEC to kickstart formal negotiations on ML-1.

Byline: Fawad Yousafzai

ISLAMABAD -- Federal Planning Minister Makhdum Khusro Bakhtyar yesterday said that the upcoming Joint cooperation committee (JCC) on CPEC would start formal negotiations on ML-1.

The 9th CPEC Joint Cooperation Committee (JCC) will be held on November 6 where Western Route of the corridor, agriculture, energy, housing and tourism projects will be deliberated, said the federal minister for Planning, Development and Reforms Makhdum Khusro Bakhtyar addressing a press conference here.

Khusro Bakhtyar was speaking at joint news conference with Energy Minister Omar Ayub Khan, Railway Minister Shaikh Rashid Ahmad and Special Assistants on Petroleum and information Nadeem Babar and Firdous Ashiq Awan.

Mr Bakhtyar said the vice chairman of National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) of China would be taken to Gwadar on November 4 soon after his arrival for inauguration of 300 MW power plant and to speed up progress on free trade zone and airport at Gwadar on which concession agreements had been signed.

He said CPEC had become a key pillar of Pakistan's economic structure that would be taken to the new heights after the upcoming JCC.

Regarding ML-1 the minister said that the project would now become the most important project of the CPEC to replace obsolete railway track of 1872-km from Karachi to Peshawar. The planning minister said that formal negotiations on ML-1 would take place during the next week JCC meeting. He said the railway ministry had submitted its feasibility study of the ML-1 project. However he said that estimated cost of ML-1 has yet to be finalized as the government will hire an International consultant for firming up the final cost estimation of the project. The...