ISLAMABAD, Aug 16: The government is contemplating to expand energy resources and enhance their use in order to achieve the objectives of the ‘industrial vision’ programme, it is learnt.
Informed sources told Dawn on Tuesday that the government had realized that without an efficient energy sector there can be no expansion of industries. An analysis of demand-supply showed that even with a modest economic growth the current rate of improvement in supply would result in power shortages and would adversely affect the growth process.
Sources said that Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz would soon chair a high-level meeting to discuss and approve the recommendations jointly prepared by Higher Education Commission (HEC) and the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) for improving performance of the country’s energy sector.
The government was told that Pakistan needed to concentrate on energy resources and it was imperative to increase power generation from traditional hydel, thermal and other like sources. WAPDA proposed a number of projects to improve hydel energy. The first proposal pertained to construction of Bhasha Dam/ Kalabagh Dam. It was, however, said that such step would increase supply of energy in the long run and in the short run thermal power units could help reduce power shortage.
The government was also told that there was a need to diversify fast growing sectors like engineering and electronics. Engineering industry was one of the most dynamic industries in the world with a great potential for growth.
The main strategic focus in the engineering sector, according to HEC and PIDE, was on bridging technological gap between Pakistan and developed countries by providing conducive environment and required technological, financial and physical infrastructure and creating a seamless integration with emerging trends of global production systems.
The most important step for promotion of engineering sector in Pakistan was to allocate more resources to technical education, lack of which has been identified as one of the reasons for limited progress in this sector.
“There is also a need to develop design-engineering capability, database and infrastructure and testing laboratories and initiate public-private partnership in projects leading to innovation of new products and processes”, said the joint study of the HEC and PIDE.
The Study, ‘Technical-Based Industrial Vision and Strategy for Pakistan’s Socio-Economic Development’, recently submitted to the government, also called for improving the electronic industry, considered one of the world’s fastest growing industries. It was a key agent in growth and innovation, underpinning many important industries including Automotive Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), Consumer appliances, defence, biomedical appliances and other scientific equipment and devices.
“For the electronics sector to emerge as one of the key drivers of growth in Pakistan, a coherent action plan is needed whose key elements include: creation of a business friendly environment that is conducive for both domestic and foreign investment in the electronic sector; human resource development, especially in the emerging areas of digital signal processing (DSP), optics, digital communications (DC), and microelectronics; development of indigenous R&D capabilities; establishment of VLSI design and training centres; and development of specialised technology parks with quality infrastructure to support concentration of high-tech industries”, the study added.