CHENGDU (China): An energy equipment provided by a Chinese company for easing electricity crisis in Pakistan has been awaiting customs clearance at Karachi for one year, officials said.

Addressing a Pakistani media delegation currently visiting China, Consul General Hasan Hameed said here that China’s biggest company DEC had sent the 315MW equipment a year ago but the customs authorities in Karachi had not been releasing it for reasons best known to them.

Because of the delay the energy sharing process was yet to be materialised, he said.

Mr Hameed said China and Pakistan were working in economic and social sectors to strengthen relations and it was because of this reason that an exhibition of photographs focusing on social and cultural aspects of the two countries had been organised in Chengdu.

The Information Officer of Sichuan provincial People’s Government, Hou Xiongfei, said that Pak-China friendship was time tested, adding that trade between the two countries would expand under the Pakistan China Trade Corporation.