The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet on yesterday approved a sovereign guarantee for Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) to acquire a Rs1 billion loan for Hajj operations and allowed an increased tariff for import of 74MW electricity from Iran.
The meeting, presided over by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, was also informed by water and power minister Khawaja Asif that the import of electricity from Iran was not hit by the UN sanctions because the existing agreement had come into force much before these restrictions. Payments were also taking place through barter trade.
He went on to suggest that his ministry, in fact, “intends to import 1,000MW of electricity from Iran in the coming years”.
The proposed 1,000MW import option had been in the pipeline for years but the two sides have not been able to sort out issues on tariff and reach consensus on technical and legal parameters of the agreement.
