Islamabad: A 682-km railway line will be laid between Pakistan and China, a federal minister told the Senate on Friday. The planned rail link will connect Havelian in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province with 15,397 feet high Khunjerab Pass in the Karakorum mountains on the border of Xinjiang region of China.

Information Minister Pervaiz Rasheed told the upper house of the parliament that the actual cost of the project would be released after detailed feasibility study and design.

He said the planned airway line is part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, winch envisages Chinese investment of $46 billion (Dh168.8 billion) in energy projects and infrastructure development.

The existing Karakoram Highway connects the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region of China and Gilgit–Baltistan region of Pakistan through the Khunjerab Pass.

Due to its high elevation and the difficult conditions in which it was constructed with China’s help the Karakorum roadway is referred to as the eighth wonder of the World.

Khunjerab Pass is often snow-covered during the winter season and consequently is generally closed from November 30 to May one.

Since June 1, 2006, there has been a daily bus service across the boundary from Gilgit, to Kashgar in Xinjiang.