France to provide €50m credit for power plants

Also promises €0.2m grant; money will be spent on rehabilitation

ISLAMABAD: France on Friday committed to provide €50 million in credit and €0.2 million worth of grant for the rehabilitation of Chitral and Dargai hydroelectric power plants.

The main objective of the funding is to meet current and future electricity needs of Chitral and Malakand regions.

France, through the French Agency for Development (AFD), is already providing technical and financial support in the energy and urban development sector in Pakistan, where financial support worth €610 million has been committed since 2016.

Economic Affairs Division Secretary Noor Ahmed, French Ambassador Marc Baréty and AFD Country Director Jacky Amprou signed the credit facility agreement worth €50 million and the grant agreement worth €0.2 million. This funding will allow the modernisation of Chitral and Dargai hydroelectric power plants as well as increase the generation capacity from 20 megawatts to 22MW for the Dargai plant and from 1MW to 5MW for the Chitral plant.

The main objective of the project will be to provide adequate facilities for generation, transmission and distribution of energy to meet current and future needs of Chitral and Malakand regions. This will also result in industrial, agricultural and economic development in the regions.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 20^th, 2019.

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