|
|
|
| December 5, 2003 | Friday | Shawwal 10, 1424 |
Plans nearing completion for Chashma power plant
ISLAMABAD, Dec 4: Plans by China to build a second nuclear plant in Pakistan for civilian use, on the table since March, are nearing completion, officials said on Thursday.
“Details are being worked out. They are in a very final shape,” an official of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) told AFP.
A memorandum of understanding for the project was first signed in March during Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali’s first official visit to China.
China agreed then to finance and build a 300-megawatt nuclear power plant on the banks of the Indus River at Chashma.
Islamabad and Beijing further spruced up the plan in November when President Pervez Musharraf visited the Chinese capital.
Financial and technical experts from both sides have had further talks since then, a foreign ministry official told AFP.
Mr Jamali asked officials to speed up the plans during a meeting of PAEC officials on Tuesday.
China has already built a nuclear power plant at Chashma. It started power generation in December 2000.
Pakistan’s maiden nuclear power plant, the 137-megawatt Karachi Nuclear Power station, was set up more than 30 years ago with Canadian assistance.
Power from nuclear plants amounts to 2.5 per cent of Pakistan’s total generating capacity of 17,726-megawatts. Thermal power accounts for 69 per cent and hydroelectric power for 28.3 per cent.
Pakistan has run a separate military nuclear programme since the 1970s, only coming out of the closet in May 1998 when it matched India’s nuclear tests.
Its nuclear arsenal is estimated at 30 to 50 nuclear warheads.
The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) issued a report in November alleging that Chinese firms may be aiding Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme.
The CIA report said Chinese entities worked with Pakistan and Iran on ballistic missile-related projects during the first six months of this year.
China and Pakistan adamantly rejected the allegations.
“Cooperation between China and Pakistan regarding nuclear energy generation is purely for peaceful purposes and does not violate any non-proliferation obligations or China’s export controls,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said.
Chinese nuclear energy cooperation with Pakistan was being carried out under safeguards put in place by the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), he added.—AFP
|
|
|
|
