Pakistan and China signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the construction of the 1,200 MW Chashma-V nuclear power plant on Tuesday.
The $4.8 billion project was signed in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad by Wang Yongji, president of China’s National Nuclear Cooperation Overseas Company, and Muhammad Saeed-ur-Rehman, a senior official of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, in islamabad.
According to the media, the Pakistani Prime Minister said that the government would start the project without delay and appreciated the commitment of Chinese investment in the country.
The project will be constructed at Chashma in the Mianwali district of Punjab province, which already has nuclear power plants.
When Pakistan inaugurated its sixth nuclear power plant two years ago, the country’s nuclear power generation capacity had reached 1,400 MW.
Earlier, Pakistan had built an 1100 MW nuclear power plant in Pakistan’s coastal city of Karachi with China’s cooperation.
According to Pakistani media, the decision to construct this project was taken in principle by the previous PML-N government in 2017, but the subsequent government did not pay attention to it.
The Prime Minister said that the cost of this project has been kept the same as in 2017 and the Chinese government has also given a discount of about Rs 30 billion or $ 100 million despite the cost increasing according to inflation.
It is not clear whether the power plant will be constructed under the approximately $65 billion projects of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
The government of Pakistan is trying to save foreign exchange reserves by increasing electricity production through water, wind, and solar power projects instead of imported furnace oil, it said.
Last week, the Pakistani PM while presiding over a meeting on policy-making on energy from alternative sources, said that in the upcoming budget, the government has ensured steps to generate electricity from alternative sources, especially solar sources.