TOKYO: Minister for Energy Omar Ayub on Thursday said Pakistan’s energy industry offers tremendous investment opportunities for local and foreign investors.

“Pakistan is focusing to improve the Ease of Doing Business to encourage foreign investors to initiate new projects and expand their operations in the country,” Omar Ayub said while addressing the 8th Ministers LNG Producer-Consumer Conference in Tokyo.

The minister for energy said various steps had been taken for the development of LNG sector to mitigate energy shortages.  These, he said, included building of two LNG terminals to receive and regasify 1.2BCFD-gas per day and permission to private sector for setting up five more LNG terminals.

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He met with Qatari Minister of State for Energy Affairs Saad Sherida Al Kaabi in Tokyo and discussed the future prospects of Qatari investment in energy related infrastructure in Pakistan.

Omar Ayub Khan also met with Japanese Minister for Economy Isshu Sugawara and apprised him of investment friendly policies of Pakistan particularly in the power, oil and gas sectors. He said Pakistan would like more Japanese companies to take full advantage of the economic opportunities in the country.

President calls for exploiting environment friendly sources of energy

President Dr Arif Alvi has stressed the need for exploiting environment friendly sources of energy to meet the domestic demand.   

Addressing Renewable Energy Summit in Islamabad on Thursday, he said the country needed energy that did not add to the global warming as well as reduce its reliance on imported fuel.    

The president expressed satisfaction that the government planned to increase the share of renewable energy to 20 percent by 2025 and 30 percent by 2030.   

He pointed out that the cost of renewable energy was going down. He, however, said that Pakistan must also manufacture solar panels domestically as the country could not afford the import cost.

Arif Alvi said investment in renewable energy could be encouraged by offering incentives to the industries and entrepreneurs.

He said building of dams also provided cheap source of energy. He said Pakistan needed energy for ensuring development in the future therefore, there was need to refrain from wasting the energy.