China starts work to identify location in Kashgar for railway link
Source : The News Date : July 17, 2013
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BEIJING: Officials have been asked to carry out research to identify a location for railway connectivity between Pakistan and China, as local people are enthusiastic about plans to build a railway network to connect Kashgar in Xinjiang with the Pakistani port of Gwadar.
“We’ve already been asked to carry out research into the location of a station at Kashgar for the China-Pakistan railway, but a detailed plan and timetable have yet to be drafted,” Wang Yongzhi, deputy commissioner of Kashgar prefecture was quoted as saying by an English daily. Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced in June that Pakistan would like to build new road and rail links to Kashgar and establish a Sino-Pakistani economic corridor.
If an overland link were to be established, Gwadar Port would become the starting point for deliveries of oil and natural gas to Xinjiang, China Daily reported. Wang said China’s long experience of construction work on plateaus could prove invaluable if the decision is made to build a railway across the Pamir Plateau.