Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif yesterday inaugurated one of the first highway sections of his government’s planned $11.5bn spending plan on roads intended to expand trade and speed up economic growth.
Sharif gave a speech and then drove in a convoy down part of the new 75km section of the Karachi-Hyderabad Motorway (M-9) he dedicated yesterday as part of a planned network connecting the southern port city of Karachi to interior cities.
Pakistan is embarking on the biggest road-building programme in its history, with Sharif’s office saying projects worth 1,200bn Pakistan rupees ($11.5bn) are under way.
“After the completion of these projects, the total length of (new) motorways will reach 2,000km,” Sharif’s office said in a statement.
Pakistan’s national network of highways now stretches to about 12,000km, according to the National Highway Authority.
Many of the new projects are slated to link up with roads connecting to the wider $57bn China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a Beijing-funded project building dozens of roads, ports and power plants in Pakistan.
Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif, centre, attends a ceremony to inaugurate the M9 motorway between Karachi and Hyderabad, near Hyderabad, yesterday.
