WASHINGTON: K-Electric Limited, Pakistan and United States (US) Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) on Wednesday executed a commitment letter for a $250 million 10-year financing project.

The OPIC loan ─ to be facilitated by CitiBank ─ will be used by K-Electric to undertake a comprehensive and transformative upgrade of K-Electric's power grid.

It is expected that the K-Electric grid strengthening project will significantly improve the reliability, stability and efficiency of the K-Electric power network and increase K-Electric’s transmission system capacity by 33 per cent or up to 1000MVA, thereby allowing it to deliver more electricity to customers.

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The signing ceremony held at the US Chamber of Commerce, was witnessed by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar who is accompanying Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on his four-day official visit to Washington.

Ishaq Dar expressed hope that K- Electric would utilise the loan to effectively improve its transmission system and decrease loadshedding in Karachi.

The Finance Minister said that energy is among the PML-N government's top priorities, adding that the government is incentivising private sector investment in energy projects and also initiating pubic sector energy projects.

Earlier in October, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif vowed the get rid of energy issues during his five year term. He said his 'hard working' team is making all efforts to overcome the energy shortage by 2018.

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