China has proposed its most expensive Belt and Road Initiative to date with a $58 billion railway system that would connect Pakistan to western China in a move to further reduce Western trade dependence, a report said Thursday.
The $57.7 billion plan was reviewed by analysts from the state-owned China Railway First Survey and Design Institute Group Co Ltd., which has determined that despite its hefty price tag the investment is worth it, reported the South China Morning Post.
The 1,860-mile rail system will connect Pakistan’s port of Gwadar to the Chinese city of Kashgar in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region and has the potential to reshape not only trade but geopolitics, according to the proposal’s review board.