KARACHI -- The Main Line 1, or ML-1, railway project, the largest in China's Belt and Road Initiative in Pakistan, has run into trouble as Beijing is reluctant to finance the project at the 1% interest rate demanded by Islamabad.
ML-1 is the biggest initiative in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC, with a price tag of $6.8 billion. With 2,655 km of track, it connects Karachi in the South to Peshawar in the North of Pakistan. Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, the federal minister of railways, claimed that ML-1 will provide jobs for 150,000 people in Pakistan.
