Pakistan plans to buy electricity from Uzbekistan - ambassador
TASHKENT. Feb 6 (Interfax) - Pakistan is interested in buying electricity from Uzbekistan, says Pakistani Ambassador to Uzbekistan Riaz Hussain Bukhari.
"We are interested in Uzbekistan's rich natural resources, and this particularly concerns electric energy," local media outlets quoted Bukhari as saying.
The parties are negotiating the possibility of exporting up to 1,000 MW of electricity from Uzbekistan to Pakistan, he said.
Tashkent is expected to host a meeting of the Uzbek-Pakistani intergovernmental commission in spring, which should deal with this and other projects that were discussed at a meeting between Uzbek President Islom Karimov and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Tashkent last November, he said.
"A lot of them will serve as a firm foundation that should help bring our peoples closer together, he said.
The project requires the construction of a high-voltage power transmission line across Afghanistan. Part of the line already exists, supplying electricity to Kabul, and the parties are working on extending the line to the Pakistani city of Peshawar.
The World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the Islamic Development Bank will act as the project's principal sponsors, the ambassador said.
Bukhari pointed out that there is still immense unemployed potential in the Pakistani-Uzbek relationship, which is obstructed in large part by the developments in Afghanistan.
"Due to poor logistics, it's very problematic to realize it [the potential]. We want to have the opportunity of direct ground communication between the countries, which is unfortunately impossible because of the situation in Afghanistan," he said.
The ambassador pointed out that, during the top-level negotiations in Tashkent while the Pakistani prime minister was visiting Tashkent in November 2015, the parties considered Uzbekistan's possible participation in the Chinese-Pakistani economic corridor.
This major infrastructural project would offer Uzbekistan great opportunities by providing access to the sea through the deep-sea ports of Karachi and Gwadar, which would be the most economically efficient routes for the country, taking into account time and road expenditures.
