Pakistan to save $5 billion from National Trade Corridor Plan: PSRP-II

[LahoreEstate]

ISLAMABAD (January 19 2009): Multi-year $6 billion National Trade Corridor would save $1.3 billion annually from trade facilitation, $2 billion from highway modernisation and $450 million from ports improvement, says Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers-II, released by Finance Ministry for soliciting public opinion.

An efficient Pakistan Railways would save $1 billion for the country, which is mostly neglected and lopsided towards passenger traffic than transportation of goods, says the paper. With all measures to improve trade, Finance Ministry plans to achieve $34 billion of export by 2012-13 from $25 billion in 2009-10 after reaching at 22.5 billion of exports in current fiscal year, it said.

While imports staying at $35.8 billion during 2008-09 would be 37.9 billion next year and would be touching 47.9 billion by 2012-13 as GDP growth factor improves gradually over next few years. On the cost side, only road parts goes up to a cost of Rs 147 billion for expansion and construction of about 1585 km of the highway and link roads to National Trade Corridor. NHA would get total Rs 277 billion for its entire highway portfolio during NTC programme.

Road related public revenue collection is about Rs 32.5 billion per year, while the total public expenditure on roads is over Rs 30 billion per year, of which 65 per cent is spent on national highways.

NTC also includes reforms in aviation sector for better utilisation on airports. The government has set up a Trade Facilitation Committee, broad mandate of which includes measures to reduce clearance and dwell times; to develop dryports; to modernise practices relating to trade and transport logistics; to expedite the implementation of reforms in customs and port procedures; and to develop freight forwarding, insurance, and banking in support of trade logistics.

The strategy also covers roads and highways outside the north-south corridor. Two important projects include the development of linkages between the port of Gawadar and the National Trade Corridor, and upgrading the Karakoram Highway to cater for increased traffic with China after the opening of the Gawadar port. The expansion of the Karakoram Highway has already begun.

The functioning of the existing ports need improvement; it has been estimated that the efficient running of ports can save Pakistan $450 million annually.

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