Pakistan

Overseas Pakistanis to make heavy investment

April 08, 2010

KARACHI: Overseas Pakistanis will start making big investments, particularly in Sindh province.

“A spate of investment will be flowing towards Pakistan during the next 6-12 months,” disclosed Sindh Industries and Commerce Minister Rauf Siddiqui, while addressing the faculty of Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology here on Wednesday.

He said that overseas Pakistanis had shown their willingness to make investments worth $20,000 to $50,000 in various sectors of the country.

The minister said that he would ensure that every industrial unit employed at least five graduates of Sir Syed University, first on internship and then on regular basis.

Speaking about power outages hampering industrial development, Siddiqui recalled his earlier proposal that all the eight industrial units in the government sector should be allowed to generate 200 megawatts of power each.

He said if the proposal was put into effect the industrial estates would produce around 1,600MW of electricity. This would help meet the existing shortfall of electricity in Karachi.

“This will also help the industrial wheel to keep moving round the clock and make export products competitive in the international market,” he said. He said the slogan of the government was that it wanted trade, not aid from the US.

However, that would be possible when Pakistan’s products were competitive and that would not be possible in the absence of electricity and gas at cheaper rates.

Siddiqui stressed the need of promoting solar energy and said if it reached every house, the energy crisis would come to an end.

Earlier, SSUET Chancellor Z A Nizami spoke about public service programmes of the university and said that these included solar and wind energy projects.

He sought the government’s help in propagation of these projects on which high technical studies had been carried out.

He said the university carried out a study on disaster management but the government department concerned did not even go through it.

COMMENTS (1)

Syed A. Mateen | 14 years ago | Reply Solar energy is the only answer to do away with the power crises. There are few commercial buildings in Pakistan which run on 100% backup generation. It is up to builders and developers to construct such high-rise residential and commercial builders which should 100% run on solar energy throughout the year. If we can conserve solar energy to be used in residential and commercial buildings, there will be no need for electricity connections. The plan is already been implemented in India and Bangladesh where governments have allowed the builders and developers to import such equipment free from any duty. Instead of importing rental power projects, the government should allow to import solar power equipment in the country to end the energy crises. Since independence, people are facing power crises. Now it is the third generation which is facing electricity crises. What can one expect from electricity generating companies when they cannot provide uninterrupted electricity to the consumers and then every month send to the consumers the exorbitant bills to pay? In Karachi alone, in every November, where there is less load on power generating company, KESC start sending its inspectors to detect the leakage of electricity, so that consumers should star paying up the exorbitant amount of electricity bills during the entire winter season and when summer comes, they face massive load-shedding and have to pay the inflated electricity bills. Does any one know, who owns KESC and Abraj Capital?

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