KARACHI: The addition of two lanes to National Highway, N-55, Ratodero-Shikarpur road was formally kicked off early this week.
The project is owned by National Highways Authority (NHA) and contracted by a Chinese enterprise, TIEC (Shaanxi Construction Engineering Group Corporation Limite), one of the top 250 global contractors of ENR in 2020.
Located in Shikarpur, Sindh, N-55 is about 43.4 km long. It is the first road infrastructure project in Sindh during the epidemic and the first project to be implemented by the NHA in 2020.
Meanwhile, it is reckoned as an important part of the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) plan. At the end of August, TIEC won the bid for this project, and it is expected to be completed in 24 months.
Xu Wei, the manager of TIEC, said earlier in an interview that during the construction period of this project, TIEC will establish a joint venture with the cooperative enterprises for project management and implementation, and the labour force will mainly be Pakistani local employees. “As a Chinese enterprise which attaches great importance to CPEC, we adhere to localised operation mode. TIEC strives to train local technical workers and management talents,” he said.
Xu stated that localised operations have brought great benefits to local development. The projects provide many jobs, fund the training of local labour, and extensively use local building materials. TIEC has kept a close eye on the construction sector in Pakistan, such as housing, roads, airports, hospitals, and other municipal works.
“We will further explore the area of construction investment as well,” Xu said.
