Infrastructure: WB extends financial support to NHA

Bank agrees to finance development of Pakistan’s highways.

ISLAMABAD: National Highway Authority (NHA) Chairman Hamid Ali Khan has said that the World Bank (WB) has extended valuable financial and technical assistance for the construction and restoration of highways in Pakistan.

Khan made the remarks while talking to a WB delegation which had called on the chairman at the NHA Head Office here, according to a press release issued on Tuesday.

The NHA chairman said the authority was extending its motorways, expressways and highways to neighbouring countries through a coordinated road network.

During the meeting, matters relating to WB-assisted projects were reviewed in detail. Khan said that the NHA was attaching top priority to the Gwadar linkage programmes and the upgradation of the Karakoram Highway so that Pakistan could play a role in regional trade activity.

He thanked the WB for its assistance in the National Highway Improvement Programme, under which certain sections of Pakistan’s Grand Trunk Road (N-5), an economic lifeline, were rehabilitated and upgraded.

The WB delegation, on the other hand, emphasised the importance of private sector participation in the development of the road network in Pakistan. The delegation said that the development of the region may be achieved through public-private partnerships, and that people should pay for the construction of infrastructure.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 19^th, 2013.

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