ISLAMABAD, Aug 19: The government has decided to offer additional incentives to foreign investors for setting up nuclear power plants in the proposed ‘Designated Nuclear Power Parks’ under the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards.
A government official told this correspondent on Saturday that the Private Power and Infrastructure Board (PPIB) was being asked to work out fiscal and non-fiscal incentives to attract foreign investment.
He said the country’s growing energy requirements would be partly met by nuclear power for which it was imperative to provide enhanced facilities and tax concessions to the foreign investors interested in setting up private nuclear power plants in Pakistan.
The official pointed out that the setting up of nuclear power plants by foreign investors under the IAEA safeguards would address ‘proliferation concerns’ of the United States and other western countries.
However, other sources said that attracting considerable foreign investment in the nuclear power parks would prove difficult owing to opposition by the United States.
“The United States is willing to provide financial and technical assistance to Pakistan to import electricity from Central Asia rather than helping us to have foreign investment for setting up nuclear power plants,” a source said.
Some official planners have advised the government to shift the energy production away from fossil fuel to nuclear, wind, solar, etc. Fast depleting gas reserves and rising oil prices demand that the government reduce the heavy dependence on natural gas for industry, power generation and commercial and household use.
The country’s natural gas reserves may witness a major decline by 2010 and planners emphasise that a plan must be formulated now to meet the situation.
Since nuclear energy has proved to be one of the efficient power generation modes, the planners want the government to accelerate negotiations with China for acquiring 3-4 more nuclear power plants, each having a capacity of 325MW.
China had earlier provided two 300MW nuclear power plants - Chashma 1 and 11 – to Pakistan.
The sources said that IAEA supported Pakistan’s plan to meet power shortage through peaceful application of nuclear power.
The IAEA officials, the sources said, agreed with Pakistan that the US should also back Islamabad’s longer-term Energy Security Plan for producing 8,800MW of energy by 2030 after it had decided to help India produce 40,000MW of nuclear energy by 2040.
They said that since Pakistan was accepting safeguards and giving non-proliferation assurances, its increasing nuclear energy should be met by the US government.
Pakistan has based its case for acquiring nuclear energy for peaceful uses on three counts: it does not have enough oil resources, it wants to contain global warming and it has to ensure security of supplies.
Meanwhile, it is learnt that the government is likely to rent a few power plants from abroad. General Electric (GE) of the US and some other American and European companies are expected to be shortly contacted to provide 3-4 power plants to Pakistan.
Earlier, the government had decided to rent a 150MW power plant from GE.