ISLAMABAD: The China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) energy projects not only helped meet the electricity needs of Pakistan but also provided jobs to thousands of people.

This was stated by political economist and Asian Institute of Eco-civilization Research and Development (AIERD) Chief Executive Officer Shakeel Ahmed Ramay in a press release.

“Energy projects not only helped Pakistan manage the loadshedding crisis but also provided a decent number of jobs and assisted in improving its workers’ skills,” Mr Ramay said.

But, he added, there were some forces that were running nonstop malicious campaigns against CPEC energy projects.

He said as many as 8,436 jobs were created during the construction of the Sahiwal power plant alone and 4,000 during the Port Qasim plant’s construction phase.

“At present Sahiwal power plant employs 1,683 people, with the job proportion between Pakistanis and Chinese nationals being 61:39,” the press release said.

It added that Chinese companies and the government had contributed to building the capacity of Pakistani staff working at Sahiwal power plant by training 245 engineers and 377 office or lower staff.

“It was a significant contribution to the skill development of Pakistan’s workforce,” he said.

As far as Port Qasim project is concerned, China trained 600 engineers and 2,000 office and lower staff, the AIERD chief executive officer said, adding that “during the operation, it employed 1,270 employees, with a proportion of 76:24 from Pakistan and China, respectively”.

Talking about the circular debt and electricity prices, Mr Ramay said the real culprit was the ‘Power Policy 1994’, adding that the USAID and the World Bank should not have provided finances for such a policy.

“The total circular debt of Pakistan stands at Rs2.66 trillion whereas the contribution of Chinese companies to it is Rs400 billion. If we minus the Rs400 billion from Rs2.66 trillion, the debt will be Rs2.2 trillion,” he said.

He went on to say that CPEC energy projects had in fact helped us on multiple fronts.

“If there were no CPEC energy projects, the national grid would have been deprived of over 5,000 megawatts of electricity,” he said, adding that demand would have risen due to population increase and per capita consumption.

“The electricity loadshedding would have been out of control with an annual loss roughly estimated at $15-20 billion,” he added.

Published in Dawn, August 7th, 2024