Day: April 22, 2021

Pakistan is bearing an annual loss of Rs240 billion due to the smuggling of Petroleum products, according to the Petroleum Commission’s report which was made public on Tuesday after the federal cabinet’s approval.  Petroleum products, especially motor spirit (MS) and high speed diesel (HSD), are smuggled into Pakistan from the western border of Taftan, Iran. The tax department during the year 2019-20 seized 27,911,746 litre petrol and 997,037,434 litres smuggled diesel. The report states that the net loss of revenue on the seized product is around Rs48bn in one year…

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While the situation at external front has been improving, the foreign direct investment climate is dreary as usual. Where COIVD-19 pandemic has adversely affected FDI flows across the globe including Pakistan, the situation at home has been worrisome much before the pandemic hit. The continuous decline in FDI since after FY17 is the evidence. Central bank’s latest data shows that net flows in March 2021 was down again year-on-year – though it was able to break the continuous month-on-month decline streak of the previous four months. At $253 million, net…

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By 31 March 2021, new power generation projects under construction stood at 463 gigawatts (GW) across the region’s 16 key power markets, up 5% from the previous quarter, reported IHS Markit. “With countries aiming to further reduce their carbon emissions, it is not surprising that the share of renewables in planned power projects increased in the last quarter,” said Xizhou Zhou, vice president, global power & renewables at IHS Markit. Australia widens gap as clean energy leader in Asia Pacific Australia confirmed its top position in the second quarter RAI,…

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The honest power consumers are likely to pay an additional Rs1.1 trillion to the powerful independent power plants (IPPs) including idle generation companies on account of rising capacity payments. The capacity payments have continued to increase and are expected to touch a high of Rs1.6 trillion in 2023. During the tenure of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government, the capacity payments have swelled 53% from 2018 to 2021. The capacity payments stood at Rs500 billion in 2018, the year when the PTI came to power. This has jumped to nearly Rs950 billion…

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ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Energy Muhammad Hammad Azhar on Wednesday took detailed briefing on matters relating to Power Sector. The Federal Minister was apprised on the current stock of circular debt which stood at Rs. 2300 billion approximately. Power Division has devised monthly circular debt reporting which also indicated different factors contributing in its build up, said a press release. The Federal Minister was also briefed about the ongoing development projects under the organisations of Power Division. These included major transmission and distribution improvement projects. The minister was apprised that…

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