Huge Russian investment expected in Pakistan

Daily Times

Russian Federation to assist Pakistan for revival of Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM), Pakistan Railways (PR) and help in enhancing power generation, the Minister of State and Chairman Board of Investment (BoI) Saleem Mandviwalla said on Tuesday. At a joint briefing along with the Russian delegation he said the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) regarding the expansion and rehabilitation of PSM was signed. It dealt mainly the cooperation in the project of modernisation, reconstruction and expansion of the production capacity of PSM up to 1.5 million tonnes. The Russian Company Tyazhpromexport helped Pakistan to establish PSM. After the signing of MoU, the technical audit of the PSM by the Russian company Tyazhpromexport would be carried out, he informed. Another MoU was signed for the up gradation of PR. A delegation of the Transmashholding visited Pakistan and held meetings with the Secretary Railways in Islamabad on April 25-26, wherein they were informed about the upcoming tenders for supply of passenger carriages for PR and further on exploring opportunities to cooperate with Pakistani manufacturers in order to create a joint venture for passenger carriages co-production. In this regard Transmashholding had also invited PR to visit their facilities in Russia. The third MoU was signed for cooperation in the water and power sector, in which Russia was interested to invest in many projects keeping in view the power deficiency in Pakistan. Mandviwalla reiterated the signing of MoUs in PSM, PR, power and science and technology sectors would definitely be a milestone in the bilateral relations of both the countries.