ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government has decided to shelve a major power project pushed by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz regime under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and will axe hundreds of other schemes under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) later this month, Dawn reported.
Background discussions with government officials suggest that Islamabad has officially conveyed to Beijing that it is no more interested in the 1,320MW Rahim Yar Khan power project in view of sufficient generation capacity already lined up for the next few years. It has requested the Chinese friends to formally delete the project from the CPEC list.
During the 8th Joint Coordination Committee (JCC) meeting held last month, a Pakistani delegation led by Minister for Planning and Development Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtyar “proposed to remove the Rahim Yar Khan imported fuel power plant (1,320MW) from the CPEC list, in order to provide structure optimisation space for the subsequent power market of Pakistan”, said an official, quoting minutes of the Dec 20 JCC meeting.
The Chinese side suggested that a joint study on optimisation of energy mix be carried out at the earliest.
It may be mentioned here Pakistan will pay $40 billion to China in 20 years in shape of repayments of debt and dividends on a $26.5 billion investment under flagship China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), documents of the Ministry of Planning and Development reveal.
Out of $39.83 billion – to be precise – the debt repayments of energy and infrastructure projects amount to $28.43 billion. The rest of $11.4 billion will be paid in shape of dividends to the investors, showed the official estimates.
This suggests that unlike the claims of $50 billion to $62 billion CPEC investment, the actual investment likely to remain half of the initially announced investment figures.