LAHORE: The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) stressed on the development and promotion of biotechnology and bio-fuels in Pakistan as the best substitute of conventional energy resources.

In a statement issued on Friday, LCCI President Ijaz A Mumtaz said that the business community understood that bio-fuels would reduce dependence on petroleum to some degree and enhance energy security. Likewise it would also contribute in rural economic development, he added.

Mumtaz said that countries like USA, Brazil and China were leading consumers of ethanol and many countries world over had gradually introduced Flexible-Fuel Vehicles (FFV) whose engines were designed to run on more than one fuel. In Brazil 70per cent of all new cars sold now are FFV, he added.

“Unfortunately no significant work has been done in Pakistan in this field despite abundance of availability of cultivable area in the shape of barren and waste land,” he commented.

He also urged the government to provide biogas plants to the rural community at subsidised rates to promote alternative energy resources.

Published in Dawn, March 28th, 2015

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