China offers $50b to Pakistan for hydro projects

ISLAMABAD: 

China Three Gorges Corporation, owner of the world’s largest hydroelectric dam, has offered to participate in a financing consortium with Pakistan, funding up to $50 billion worth of hydroelectric power projects.

The Chinese owned CTG expressed an interested in financing projects in Pakistan in conjunction with the International Finance Corporation, a World Bank subsidiary.

A cabinet committee meeting on June 18 made this disclosure.

If the offer pans out, it would make China the biggest financier of infrastructure in Pakistan.

According to studies conducted by the Water and Power Development Authority, Pakistan has an identified potential of producing up to 60,000 MW of hydroelectric power, of which 40,000 MW is located in a region called the Indus Cascade, which begins in Skardu in Gilgit-Baltistan and runs through to Tarbela, the site of Pakistan’s biggest dam, in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.