SWABI, Nov 13: The country earned Rs60 billion annually from the electricity generated by the Tarbela power plant and building more dams like Tarbela would contribute to the country’s economic stability.

This was stated by GM Tarbela Dam and Ghazi Barotha hydel-power project Maqbool Shafiq Qureishi while speaking at the concluding session of the All Pakistan Engineering Conference at the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology at Topi on Monday.

Experts and students from different universities and institutes all over the country attended the conference.

Mr Qureishi said that the country had water resources which should be utilised to produce cheap electricity.

He said: "I really appreciate the professionals who came here to help the young mind in taking their country to stand side by side with technologically advanced nations.

The APEC like events are important in realisation of progress of the country."

Managing Director of Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Abdul Rashid said that conducting research on emerging technologies is not an easy task and there is dire need to utilise the technical brain of the country.

The APEC coordinator Usman Ahmad said that they wanted to create a forum where scholars, researchers and technical students from all over the country can come together and interact with each other.

The conference was divided in four categories — project competition, design competition, speed wiring competition and technical paper writing competition at undergraduate and graduate level.