Daily Times

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said on Tuesday that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) an important priority project in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) had strongly promoted economic and social development in Pakistan and also played an active role in regional connectivity.

“The CPEC is an important priority project in BRI. Since inception, it made progress in many areas including energy,” Wang Wenbin said during his regular briefing held here while commenting over commercial operation of 660kV High-Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) Matiari-Lahore Power Transmission Line Project.

He emphasised that the BRI started from China but its opportunities and outcomes benefited the whole world. “So far, there are 140 partner countries that have signed cooperative documents and BRI has already become the largest international cooperation platform benefitting largest scale in the world,” he added.

The spokesperson said that China was ready to work with different countries including Pakistan to build high quality BRI to deliver more benefits and share more dividends. It may be mentioned here that the flagship HVDC line project achieved its commercial operation date (COD) successfully last week.

The 878-Kilometre 4,000 MW project has been completed by PMLTC (Pvt) Limited on Built-Own-Operate-Transfer basis for 25 years. The project will evacuate power from the new generating units located in the south, including Thar coal projects. The HVDC technology is a maiden addition to the national grid though it has been widely used for long time around the world. It fulfils the need for long-distance high-power transmission from generating stations in far-flung areas to the densely located load centres.