ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif asked the National Highway Authority (NHA) on Saturday to prepare plans to extend the country’s road network for connectivity with Central Asia in the first phase and expand road links to other countries of South Asia in the next phase.

Presiding over a meeting on the NHA road projects, he gave December 2017 deadline to the authority for completion of all road projects, excepting those which are scheduled for earlier completion.

The prime minister said that the unprecedented road building activity undertaken by the authority would change the landscape of the country from Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Jammu Kashmir to Karachi and Gwadar.

He said the projects, including the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, were spread across all provinces and the entire country would benefit from the gigantic development activity.

Mr Sharif asked the NHA to prepare informative packages highlighting the road construction activity and the linkages created for the areas previously not connected to the networks of highways and motorways.

The prime minister was told that an investment of $1 billion from private sector in the road infrastructure projects would be achieved by the end of next month, and the overall communication network construction activity would contribute about 1 per cent to 1.5 per cent to the GDP.

There would be an addition of 1,272km in the existing motorway network with the completion of the under-construction and proposed projects, he was informed.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2015

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