ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and Germany on Thursday signed a €71 million agreement to improve power supply in parts of the South Asian country, and to support people displaced by devastating floods this summer, Berlin's envoy to Islamabad said.
The deal was brokered with the help of Germany’s KfW Development Bank, which closely cooperates with European Union institutions on behalf of the German Federal Government to increase the effectiveness of European development cooperation (DC).
Under the deal, which the German bank signed with the Pakistani government’s Economic Affairs Divison and the National Transmission and Despatch Company Limited (NTDC), €46.2 have been allocated for the construction of a 500-kilovolt grid station in Chakwal, a city in Rawalpindi division of the eastern province of Punjab.
Once constructed, the grid station would improve power supply not only to the industrial sector in Punjab but also to electric supply companies in Islamabad and Faisalabad.
Alfred Grannas, the German Ambassador to Pakistan, announced in a Twitter post on Thursday morning:
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He said out of the total of €71 million, €25 would be allocated to alleviate the condition of people displaced by recent floods, which claimed more than 1,700 lives, affected 33 million people, and incurred losses worth $30 billion, according to government estimates.
Grannas said Germany would also provide Pakistan an additional sum of €16.5 million to invest in solar energy projects to tackle climate change.
According to KfW’s Development Bank’s website, in line with the agreements signed between Pakistan and Germany to uplift the renewable energy sector, the bank co-funded both of Pakistan's main hydropower projects in Tarbela and Ghazi Barotha.
