LAHORE, April 23: The Pakistan Railways has finalised a deal with a Chinese firm for the purchase of 300 flat bed or high capacity wagons, $4,608 less than the freight on board (FOB) per piece price of the similar 1,300 coaches it had purchased from another company of China some four years ago.

Under the new deal, supply of the flat bed coaches better known as container wagons would start within six months and the process would be completed within another seven months, sources in the railways ministry said on Sunday.

Out of the 1,300 wagons, some 421 have so far been supplied by the Chinese firm under the previous deal which was finalised at the FOB price of $44,055 per wagon. “The firm is to complete the supply till December next year under the four-year delivery period,” they said.

Tenders for the 300 high capacity wagons were opened last week in Islamabad and the Chinese firm which won the previous bid gave $52,033 FOB price per coach while the Beijing Research and Design Institute of China offered $39,477 which was accepted as being the lowest.

The new deal was materialised following the PR technical staff gave a go-ahead after verifying all the specifications mentioned in the new tender by the Beijing institute, he added.

Confirming the new deal, State Railways Minister Ishaq Khan Khakwani said he had no role in the previous one. “I was an outsider when tenders for the supply of 1,300 wagons had been awarded.

“The cost of manufacturing, especially prices of inputs like steel, have doubled during the last four years or so. The quantity of items to be supplied under the new deal have also come down, reducing the profit margin, besides the delivery period is also less as compared to the previous deal.

“The prices (in the new deal) came down because of a fair and transparent competition offered to all the participants in the bidding process,” said Engineer Khakwani who had been in the railways for quite some time.