Islamabad: Pakistan wants scaled-up financing from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for the for public-private partnership based projects, including the strategically important USD 10 billion Karachi-Peshawar Main Railway Line (ML-1).
An ADB delegation led by its Vice President for South, Central and West Asia, Yingming Yang, is currently in Islamabad as part of a follow-up to the USD 10bn Country Partnership Strategy 2026-30, approved in March this year.
The delegation had separate engagements with Minister for Economic Affairs Ahad Khan Cheema and Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on Wednesday.
Pakistan has already secured USD2bn in financing from the Manila-based lending agency for the Karachi-Rohri section of the 1670-km ML-1 project, which is under implementation. Informed sources said the Economic Affairs Division was discussing additional facilities with the ADB, including innovative products such as guarantees and private partnerships.
Acknowledging the CPS 2026-30 approvals by the ADB board, Cheema discussed the government’s key development priorities including comprehensive fiscal, structural and governance reforms.
He said these measures, undertaken over the last 3-4 years in close coordination with key development partners, including the IMF, ADB, and the World Bank, had already helped restore confidence and create a stronger foundation for sustainable economic growth, while also contributing to macroeconomic stability, growth, and credit rating upgrades.
He highlighted ML-1 as a national flagship project and reported that privatisation was the government’s priority, and that effective frameworks for public-private partnerships, improving implementation, and developing a strong pipeline of commercially viable projects were in process.
The ADB Vice-President welcomed the improvements in Pakistan’s sovereign credit ratings by international rating agencies and noted efforts towards strengthening macroeconomic stability. “He appreciated the government’s initiative to introduce project readiness reforms and also acknowledged that Pakistan provided an opportunity to ADB to introduce innovative financing instruments in Pakistan such as policy-based guarantee and guarantee for issuance of Panda bonds,” the EAD statement said.
