Category: Recent Post

With Iran and China working on a multibillion-dollar 25-year economic and security deal, Israel has many reasons to be concerned and even alarmed.The proposed agreement, leaked to The New York Times, which reported on it on Saturday, would lead to a closer military relationship between Tehran and Beijing, including joint military exercises, research and weapons development and intelligence sharing. It would also increase Chinese investments in Iranian banking, telecommunications and transportation, such as airports and railways. China would reportedly get a discounted supply of Iranian oil in return. The document…

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ISLAMABAD: Raising objections over the long-term power plan, the Private Power & Infrastructure Board (PPIB) has advocated an end to LNG-based projects in future, proposing their replacement with hydropower and bulk induction of plants based on local coal with an additional Chinese investment. In its comments over the 27-year Integrated Generation Capacity Expansion Plan (IGCEP 2020-47), the PPIB has argued that coal-based power projects, particularly those on Thar coal, were being developed through Chinese financing as international multilateral financing agencies were reluctant to finance such base load power projects. “Therefore,…

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ISLAMABAD: In Pakistan, we have an entrenched cross-subsidy system, implemented through a cascaded tariff. It operates both in electricity and gas tariffs. There are on average five to six slabs in the residential tariff. Low consumption consumers pay a lower tariff and high energy consumers bear a higher tariff. For example, in case of electricity, the small consumer consuming 50-100 units pays around Rs5 per unit and a large consumer may pay as much as Rs20. Similarly, the small gas consumer may have to pay as low as Rs500 per…

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ISLAMABAD: The political economy influences decision-making, which undermines the performance of economy and results in politicising of the economic priorities. Although all sectors of the economy are bearing the brunt of this situation, the energy sector has been impacted the most. The story of politicising the energy sector started after a World Bank report in the 1960s, which emphasised the need for building dams including the Kalabagh dam well before the end of 1990s. It was deemed necessary to meet water and energy needs of the country. Regrettably, Pakistan did…

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Pakistan Railways Minister, Sheikh Rashid said that Main Line-1 Project under CPEC to revamp entire structure of Pakistan Railways. Speaking at a press conference, Railways minister termed the project as ‘revolutionary’ and was of the view that project will significantly reduce railway accidents. He said that under the agreed terms, during construction phase total 150,000 people would work on project out of which 90% will be locals while rest 10% will be Chinese Engineers. Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said on Friday the Main Line (ML)-1 project under the China-Pakistan…

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