Month: February 2021

ISLAMABAD: As the circular debt continues to plague the energy chain, the government plans to decentralise the power sector in order to incentivise devolved generation and distribution in future under the new National Electricity Policy 2021. According to a draft of the policy, all rules/regulations shall be made in a manner which shall ensure decentralisation of the power sector in order to incentivise devolved generation and distribution in future. It further revealed that stranded costs of the power sector have been observed as counterproductive for future investments. In this regard, viable solutions…

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KARACHI: The country paid over $7 billion in external debt servicing for the first half of fiscal year 2020-21 (1HFY21) which looks significantly higher when compared with the foreign exch­ange reserves of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP). The country paid $3.55bn in external debt servicing for the second quarter of the current fiscal (2QFY21) — slightly higher than first quarter (1QFY21) payment of $3.51bn, the central bank reported on Wednesday. The cumulative two quarters (half year) payment as debt servicing reached $7.06bn, indicating that the total debt servicing could…

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ISLAMABAD: Having collected about Rs100 billion, the government has decided in principle to finally do away with Neelum-Jhelum surcharge, currently applied to all electricity consumers at the rate of 10 paisa per unit, after 13 years. A summary to this effect is expected to be approved by the Economic Coordina­tion Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet in its meeting on Friday that is also expected to provide tax relaxations to Chinese companies involved in development of hydropower projects in Azad Kashmir. To be presided over by Finance Minister Dr Hafeez Shaikh,…

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