ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has asked China to include Diamer-Bhasha dam in energy projects to be undertaken under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

“We have proposed to the Chinese government to include Diamer-Bhasha Dam in the next phase of CPEC,” federal Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal said on Tuesday.

He was speaking at the concluding session of the First CPEC Media Forum which was attended by journalists from both countries.

Energy projects of about $34 billion are being undertaken as part of CPEC in the first phase. If China agrees to the proposal, the project would be included in the next phase of the energy projects under the CPEC.

The construction of Diamer-Bhasha dam is expected to cost about $12 billion. Faced with the difficulty of finding funds for the 4,500MW project, the government had decided to divide it into separate dam and power generation projects. However, it is unclear which component of the project the government is interested in getting included in the CPEC.

The planning minister said the government was determined to perform the groundbreaking of the hydel project next year and had already completed land acquisition for the purpose.

The project was first proposed in 2001, but delays have resulted in cost escalation.

He cautioned that Pakistan could face acute water shortage if work on the dam is not started next year.

Answering a question about the progress on the energy projects being executed in the CPEC’s first phase, Mr Iqbal said the country would “achieve self-sufficiency in power generation by 2018”.

Some 14 power generation and a transmission line projects are included in the first phase.

The minister said that wind and solar energy projects would be commissioned in about a year, and the coal power projects by 2018. The hydel projects would be ready by 2020.

Speaking on the occasion, Chinese Ambassador Sun Weidong said there was no fixed limit for investment under the CPEC and that more could be made depending on the project for which it was required.

“As CPEC progresses more investment is likely,” he said, adding that the CPEC was a process rather than a project and might take more than a decade to complete.

The $46 billion figure commonly associated with the CPEC, he clarified, was only for the first phase.

He expressed satisfaction that the first phase projects were “making smooth progress” and of the 14 power generation projects nine had already reached financial close.

Ambassador Sun said the CPEC was a “major and pilot” project of President Xi’s ‘road and belt’ initiative and described it as a mutually beneficial effort.

Chairman of Parliamentary CPEC Committee Senator Mushahid Hussain who helped set up the Pak-China Media Forum stressed greater cooperation between the media in the two countries.

He called on the media to extend full support to the CPEC initiative.

Published in Dawn, November 18th, 2015