ISLAMABAD, April 11: Russia has offered to supply Pakistan with high-speed passenger train coaches, locomotives and signalling systems. The offer was made by a visiting Russian delegation during a meeting with federal Minister for Railways Shaikh Rashid Ahmad in Islamabad on Wednesday.

The delegation is a part of an entourage of Russian Prime Minister, Mr. Mikhail Fardkov, who is arriving in Islamabad on Thursday.

The Russian delegation visited a carriage factory in Islamabad on Wednesday.

Mr Ahmad asked the Russians to invest in Pakistan Railways to bring it at par with the rest of the world. He urged the delegation to introduce latest signalling systems and high-speed railway tracks in Pakistan.

He informed the delegation about Pakistan’s efforts in turning into an energy corridor for the world in the coming decade.

Pakistan is keen to establish long-term relations with Russia based on mutual trust and cooperation in different fields, he said.

Pakistan is eager to start metro services in eight major cities and a high-speed train service between Lahore and Rawalpindi.

The bullet train project is the first ever project in South Asia, he claimed.

The minister said that work on the Quetta-Kandhar (Pakistan-Afghanistan) and Taftan-Zahidan (Pakistan-Iran) sections was already underway, and the feasibility study of developing a rail link between China and Pakistan was being conducted, which would be completed within this year.

Mr. Ahmad said that apart from the European world, Pakistan was focusing on its relations with Russia, China, Iran and Afghanistan. He said that Foreign Direct Investment has increased manifold in the last seven years due to the opening of Pakistan’s economy and the consistency of its fiscal policies.

The minister said that economic relations between Russia and Pakistan have long been tied with the establishment of Pakistan Steel Mills in Karachi, which was a manifest of mutual economic cooperation between the two countries before the cold war.

There is a dire need to develop these relations further in this age of economic dependence and globalization, he said.

He hoped that the visit of the Russian prime minister would give further impetus to the ties between the two countries.