LAHORE, July 5: USAID Regional Coordinator for South Asia Regional Initiative for Energy (SARI/Energy) Ms. Robyn McGuckin has said that the United States would continue supporting Pakistan in its endeavours to ensure energy security. She was speaking at a dinner hosted by Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) at a local hotel on Wednesday evening.

FPCCI President Tanvir Ahmad Sheikh, leading businessmen and industrialists attended the dinner.Ms. McGuckin said with the rising prices of petroleum, the energy security had attained significance across the world especially in South Asia where the growth rate was very high.

She said that Pakistan was geo-strategically located between the region with largest energy reserves of the world and the countries with highest energy consumption like China.

She also referred to the factors like efficient energy market and the possibility of cross border trade of energy that could ensure energy security in the region.

Talking about the availability of hydro-carbon resources in Pakistan, she said that this country had huge coal reserves that could be utilised for the generation of power.

Referring to June 27 symposium on Renewable Energy held here, she said that wind and solar maps of Pakistan’s and Afghanistan’s renewable energy sources presented there were prepared with the support of USAID’s South Asia Regional Initiative for Energy.

She said that the wind and solar maps provide the people and governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan a quantified and qualified assessment of wind and solar energy resources of their respective countries.

Ms. McGuckin said that the SARI/Energy had also prepared wind and solar energy maps for Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

Earlier, in his address of welcome, FPCCI President Tanvir Ahmad Sheikh said that the US can assist Pakistan to address the economic challenges through shifting its support from conventional aid to market access, investment, technology transfer, education and training, scientific research and infrastructure development.

“We realise that time has come for re-appraisal of the existing US strategy to Pakistan to have more widened and meaningful cooperation in trade and investment,” he said.

He said that Pakistan would prefer to have greater access to the US market compared to increased aid allocation.

He said that the USAID programme can help Pakistan in the sectors like exploration of minerals and natural resources, construction of dams and electricity generation projects.—APP