Karachi, Pakistan — President Mohammed Zia ulHaq Tuesday dedicated Pakistan’s biggest industrial project, a $1.62 billion steel mill built with Soviet assistance, and suggested the Soviet Union join with his nation to build a similar mill in Afghanistan.
“Completion of the Pakistan steel mill is the most precious New Year gift to the nation,” Zia said in his dedication speech and expressed the hope that the project will spark more industrial development nationwide.
The Soviet Union contributed an estimated $377 million to the project and kept scores of advisers in the country to oversee work on the project during the past 24 years.
Despite that help, Soviet relations with Pakistan are shaky because of the Soviets’ December 1979 invasion of Afghanistan.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 25, 1985
