New Railway Line

[R2D2]

The proposed ML-1 Railway Line to be developed by China will bring Pakistan further under the mountain of debt and it cannot even pay off the current debt. It is a useless project as we already have got a functioning Railway Line. Only it has to be repaired correctly in areas that were damaged due to rain and floods.

In the Economic Hitmen book, the author has identified such large scale infrastructure projects that are forced upon the victim country by America to get them under debt. Now, China is playing the same game.

Don't get me wrong, I am more against America than China because it is forcing us to accept Israel and in future will force us to handover our Nukes.

We should only get loans for projects that are absolutely necessary for the country and reduce our expenditures by a wide margin through stopping unneeded imports and take steps to increase the value of our currency so that the debt burden is reduced.

 

[Vikramaditya-I]

Building a railway line is not complex engineering. Why do you need China to build a railway network?

 

[epebble]

The proposed ML-1 Railway Line to be developed by China will bring Pakistan further under the mountain of debt and it cannot even pay off the current debt. It is a useless project as we already have got a functioning Railway Line. Only it has to be repaired correctly in areas that were damaged due to rain and floods.

In the Economic Hitmen book, the author has identified such large scale infrastructure projects that are forced upon the victim country by America to get them under debt. Now, China is playing the same game.

Don't get me wrong, I am more against America than China because it is forcing us to accept Israel and in future will force us to handover our Nukes.

We should only get loans for projects that are absolutely necessary for the country and reduce our expenditures by a wide margin through stopping unneeded imports and take steps to increase the value of our currency so that the debt burden is reduced.

More interesting thing is, if a rail line has to be laid, why does it need foreign know how? It is not like making airplanes or rockets. Pakistan can invest in developing local skills and improve human capital. Obviously, no foreign investment will come if local workers can't even build their own roads and rail themselves. When foreigners build roads, it indirectly announces to the world, we are too stupid to move dirt.

 

[Communism]

Chinese Infrastructure is higher quality and less expensive.


Chinese loans are cheaper than other forms of funding.


Doing it locally would simply be more expensive and have a worse result.


As I have said before, Pakistan has always been insolvent.


The problems are, have been, and likely always will be local, with nothing to do with China.


Pakistan has spent ~20% of GDP on government spending for the last ~20 years every single year while only running a government revenue to GDP of ~10% of GDP for the last 20 years every single year.


That is Pakistan's real problem.

 

[R2D2]

The same question has to be asked from Saudi Arabia that when it has large construction companies, then why does it need America to make a railway line for it.

The answer is that foreign loans are having conditionalities that financer country's infrastructure firms and consultants will work on the projects. In this way most of the loan amount is funneled back to the financer country.

 

[Communism]

The same question has to be asked from Saudi Arabia that when it has large construction companies, then why does it need America to make a railway line for it.

The answer is that foreign loans are having conditionalities that financer country's infrastructure firms and consultants will work on the projects. In this way most of the loan amount is funneled back to the financer country.

North-South Railway Line

The North-South Railway (NSR) project in Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest railway construction and the longest route to adopt…

www.railway-technology.com

A consortium of Louis Verger, Systra, Canarail and Saudi Consolidated Engineering was appointed as the project implementation and supervision consultancy on a 75-month contract in 2004. The consultancy completed the detailed engineering designs of the project in 2005.

On 3 April 2007, three civil and track works contracts were signed with a consortium of international and local companies. The first contract valued SAR2.3bn was signed with the construction company Saudi Binladin Group and Mohammed Al-Swailem Co. in partnership with a German firm for a 576km stretch from Al Zubirah to Ras Az Zwar. The second contract was awarded to the AlSuwaikat group of companies for a 440km stretch from Al Zubirah to the middle of the desert in Al Nafude for SAR1.9bn.

The third contract worth SAR2.8bn was awarded to Barclay Mowlem of Australia, Mitsui of Japan and Al-Rashed of Saudi for laying a 750km railroad from the middle of Al Nafude to Al Haditha, Al Jalamid and Al Basyata.

A commercial corporation, Saudi Railway Company (SAR), was created to maintain and operate the North-South Railway line through a contract based operator. On 9 April 2009, SAR signed three new contracts to continue work on the railway. A contract to build European style signalling, ticketing, communications and security systems was awarded to a French group, Thales, and to Saudi Binladin group for $453m. The second contract for design and manufacture of 4300HP locomotives was awarded to the US firm, ElectroMotive Diesel Inc., for $90m and the third contract worth $91.3m was awarded to China’s CSR group who will design and manufacture the proposed 668 wagons.

 

[R2D2]

North-South Railway Line

The North-South Railway (NSR) project in Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest railway construction and the longest route to adopt…

www.railway-technology.com

A consortium of Louis Verger, Systra, Canarail and Saudi Consolidated Engineering was appointed as the project implementation and supervision consultancy on a 75-month contract in 2004. The consultancy completed the detailed engineering designs of the project in 2005.

On 3 April 2007, three civil and track works contracts were signed with a consortium of international and local companies. The first contract valued SAR2.3bn was signed with the construction company Saudi Binladin Group and Mohammed Al-Swailem Co. in partnership with a German firm for a 576km stretch from Al Zubirah to Ras Az Zwar. The second contract was awarded to the AlSuwaikat group of companies for a 440km stretch from Al Zubirah to the middle of the desert in Al Nafude for SAR1.9bn.

The third contract worth SAR2.8bn was awarded to Barclay Mowlem of Australia, Mitsui of Japan and Al-Rashed of Saudi for laying a 750km railroad from the middle of Al Nafude to Al Haditha, Al Jalamid and Al Basyata.

I was referring to the proposed Railway Line linking Saudia to Israel as part of India-Middle East-Europe Linkage.

 

[kmc_chacko]

Building a railway line is not complex engineering. Why do you need China to build a railway network?

Corruption

 

[Communism]

I was referring to the proposed Railway Line linking Saudia to Israel as part of India-Middle East-Europe Linkage.

That is simply a Memorandum of Understanding with zero details as it hasn't even been negotiated yet.


There is zero chance they would use a U.S. company to build it though, as the U.S. simply doesn't do those sorts of things.


The U.S. has poor expertise in building railways compared to the global leaders.

 

[Thəorətic Muslim]

Doing it locally would simply be more expensive and have a worse result.

If you can't lay down 2 steel rails you have bigger problems in life.

The entire CPEC should have been focused on knowledge transfer rather than imported labor.

But it's just easier to buy products in $ and sell in PKR. #Business #Genius

 

[epebble]

The same question has to be asked from Saudi Arabia that when it has large construction companies, then why does it need America to make a railway line for it.

No comparison. Saudis are rolling in money, and they are genuinely too lazy to do any work. They have foreigners to pick up trash. The famous quote going around during the Gulf wars was that Hardest work an Arab can do is, to lift money.

As I have said before, Pakistan has always been insolvent.

But not for military production. Aircraft, ships, submarines are getting built somehow.

 

[Communism]

If you can't lay down 2 steel rails you have bigger problems in life.

The entire CPEC should have been focused on knowledge transfer rather than imported labor.

But it's just easier to buy products in $ and sell in PKR. #Business #Genius

Plenty of countries had that same thought process.


They are now the global laggards, as they didn't take advantage of global comparative advantage.


If you want a Pakistan Steel Mills or Pakistan International Airways or WAPDA type organization building/upgrading Pakistan's rail lines, the results will be obvious.

 

[epebble]

If you can't lay down 2 steel rails you have bigger problems in life.

The entire CPEC should have been focused on knowledge transfer rather than imported labor.

But it's just easier to buy products in $ and sell in PKR. #Business #Genius

This is a far bigger problem than the constant focus on bean counting. Pakistan has fiscal and monetary crisis, no doubt, but the part that is overlooked is human capital. If a country is bankrupt and the people can't run the country (like making and supplying electricity, building and maintaining roads, building and running railroads), it is absurd to expect some foreigners will invest and develop your country.,

 

[Communism]

This is a far bigger problem than the constant focus on bean counting. Pakistan has fiscal and monetary crisis, no doubt, but the part that is overlooked is human capital. If a country is bankrupt and the people can't run the country (like making and supplying electricity, building and maintaining roads, building and running railroads), it is absurd to expect some foreigners will invest and develop your country.,

The whole "human capital" schtick is clearly a crock of shit.


I refuse to believe that most people in the world are "subhuman trash."


It's more a case of comparative advantage.


Doing what a country is already good at to build a strong fiscal position, and only then doing the expensive undertaking of acquiring extra skills.


People like to pretend that "improving human capital" is capital efficient for a country that is already fiscally irresponsible.


It's not, and people should get their priorities straight.

 

[Jango]

More interesting thing is, if a rail line has to be laid, why does it need foreign know how? It is not like making airplanes or rockets. Pakistan can invest in developing local skills and improve human capital. Obviously, no foreign investment will come if local workers can't even build their own roads and rail themselves. When foreigners build roads, it indirectly announces to the world, we are too stupid to move dirt.

We contracted Turkish companies to lift garbage from the streets of Lahore.

HinoPak has been making busses since before I was born, but we still had to import busses to run on BRT from Turkey.

All our industrial or manufacturing capability freezed in the 1970's. After that, it's just been a downward spiral.