PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak on Tuesday ordered the speedy execution of the Peshawar Safe City Project.

He asked the home, planning and development and police officials and representatives of the Chinese company tasked with executing the project to sit together and finalise the requirements on cameras, poles, fiber optics and control room, said a handout issued here.

The CM was talking to the vice president of the Chinese company.

He said the Peshawar Safe City Project would also focus on monitoring the capital’s adjacent areas bordering tribal agencies.

Mr. Khattak said the project would be executed in Peshawar and would be extended to other cities of the province afterwards.

CM says investment accords with foreign firms this week

He said the project should be planned in a manner that it could generate resources as well. “The teams of the provincial government and the company should coordinate with each other and finalise modalities in this respect,” he said.

The CM said a team of the Chinese company would visit Peshawar next month.

He said his government would finalise investment agreements with several foreign companies, especially Chinese ones, in the current week.

Mr. Khattak said those accords were mainly related to small hydel and renewable power generation schemes meant to provide cheap electricity to the people of the entire country on one hand and contribute to environmental conservation and income generation in the province on the other.

Also in the day, a delegation of the Sino-Hydro Corporation called on the chief minister and offered more investments in different projects in the province.

The Chinese company is already working on different hydel power generations in the province, including the extension of Tarbela dam and Shamai Khwarh.

Also in attendance were planning and development secretary Shahab Ali Shah and power secretary Mohammad Naeem Khan, who briefed visitors about investment opportunities in the province and the government’s relevant policies.

The CM told the delegates that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s location was so strategic that it provided the best place for investment to get the maximum benefits from the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project.

He also highlighted the natural endowment of the province, which, he said, made it the best place for getting the maximum return on investment.

Mr. Khattak said the representatives of the two companies and provincial government would meet in a day or two to finalise arrangements for future investments.

He directed the decision-makers to ensure that the province has a share in the revenue generation of all hydropower projects executed by foreigners.

The CM said the electricity produced by those projects would directly flow to the national grid but the province should be the end beneficiary of the revenue generated in that manner as the natural advantage of the province was being used for hydropower generation.

Both the two companies also offered investment in different sectors beyond the hydropower generation.

The CM assured them that his government had already laid down the turf for investment facilitation in the province, which would ultimately lead to the benefit of the province.

Published in Dawn, February 22nd, 2017