Finance Minister Ishaq Dar speaks during a joint press conference with OPIC president Littlefield at the Finance Ministry on Tuesday. PHOTO: PID
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and US agreed on Tuesday to collaborate on energy-related projects, with particular focus on exploring wind energy and bio-gas as alternative sources of electricity production and resume the stalled Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT).
Addressing a joint press conference alongside President Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) Elizabeth L Littefield, Federal finance minister Ishaq Dar said that Pakistan needed investment in the energy sector.
Agreeing to hold dialogues to discuss the pending issues of BIT, the finance minister said that the government was committed to resolving terrorism-related problems back home.
Dar added that talking with OPIC was part of the government's strategy to attract foreign investment in the country so that economic growth could be given a boost. He also urged OPIC to invest in private companies, adding that Pakistan had a number of lucrative opportunities for investors.
Littlefield added that the investment of OPIC in Pakistan has increased from $80 million to $300 million.
The OPIC president said that US companies have earlier been involved in working on a 50 megawatt electricity project in Sindh as well.
Littlefield said that Pakistan has a number of challenges to deal with but expressed optimism at the new government's ability to overcome them successfully.
The finance minister said that Independent Power Producers (IPPs) had the ability to generate more electricity and that the government had paid circular debt to increase production capacity.
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While addressing the energy generation issue, technical losses and electricity theft should be attended to on a priority basis. Owing to degraded infrastructure, line losses in transmission have risen to roughly 30 percent in Pakistan. Energy pilferage stands at Rs 250 billion. The gas theft unveiled in Faisalabad could not have been the work of one or two days. The question is why did it take so long for the government to get to the culprits? To put our house in order, proper management and supervision coupled with implementation of stringent laws are needed on urgent basis.
IPP is already sucking lot of public money because all rules are made IPP owner friendly then they show lot of moods and their plant old not environment friendly.As far as is USA is concern they talks too load to help in a big but come up with small project in a way they induct lot of agents(double gaming) they are now after us and everybody knows it open secret.All big deals of energy for India..Now USA will try to spoil our deals with China.