Sharif visits the N-J Hydropower Station

Updated: 2013-06-21

On June 19, Sharif, the new prime minister of Pakistan who took office for less than half a month, accompanied by the finance minister, the hydropower minister, the energy minister and the chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, etc., visited Neelum-Jhelum (hereinafter referred to as N-J) hydropower project undertaken by CGGC.

It was the first inspection activity of Sharif after he had acted as Pakistani prime minister, indicating that he attached great importance to the N-J project. Sharif is the second prime minister of Pakistan that inspected the N-J project. The whole inspection tour was accompanied by related personnel of CGGC. The inspection activity was covered live by dozens of media including CCTV.

At about 3 pm local time, Sharif and other officials arrived at Pakistan NJ-TBM Project Management by taking three helicopters. In the meeting room of NJ-TBM Project Management, Sharif listened to the report on the progress of the project construction, he highly appreciated the image and progress of CGGC as the general contractor of civil engineering of the N-J project, and said frankly that he was amazed by the spectacular and orderly construction site. He said that Chinese construction contractors including CGGC have made great contributions to the infrastructure construction in Pakistan, meanwhile, he expressed his heartfelt thanks, on behalf of the Pakistani government and people, to the Chinese enterprises including CGGC.

Subsequently, Sharif, accompanied by related officials of CGGC, visited the full-scale TBM (tunnel boring machine) model, and inquired about the application of the two TBMs in the N-J project, which were introduced for the first time in the history of Pakistan. In the construction control room and video monitoring room of the Project Management, Sharif watched the operating conditions of TBM through the remote monitoring equipment and expressed his satisfaction. Moreover, Sharif inspected the made a survey of the heavy-oil power plant, which is a supporting facility of the TBM equipment that had been fully put into production not long ago, and visited some branches of diversion tunnel with TBM equipments.

Sharif said, in an interview by CCTV at the project site, it was the top priority of Pakistan to fully accelerate the infrastructure construction and solve the energy crisis. He said, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang put forward the concept of “China-Pakistan Economic Corridor” when he visited Pakistan not long ago, and the economic & trade contact and cooperation in the field of infrastructure construction between China and Pakistan will broaden. He welcome and expect Chinese enterprises to participate in the infrastructure construction of Pakistan in various forms, so as to further accelerate the formation of the “China-Pakistan Economic Corridor”.

In recent years, energy crisis has become a critical barrier to the economic development and social development of Pakistan. In Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, and other big cities such as Lahore and Karachi, etc., the average daily black-out time has reached nearly 20 hours, therefore, the crisis of “power shortage” needs urgently to be relieved. The total installed capacity of the N-J project is 969 megawatts, accounting for 14.6% of the total installed capacity of hydropower in Pakistan; the operation of the N-J project is expected to effectively make up for the power shortage and generate direct economic benefit of $300 million annually.