Dushanbe: PM Nawaz Sharif takes part in CASA-1000 opening ceremony

According to details, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif took part in the inauguration ceremony of the CASA-1000 project held at Dushanbe. Other heads of states were also present with the Pakistani Premier at the ceremony. Besides Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from Pakistan, the Chief Executive of Afghanistan Abdullah Abdullah also attended the ceremony. President of Tajikistan and the Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan also attended the opening ceremony of the energy project.

The CASA-1000 project will help in supplying Pakistan with 1000 megawatts of electricity via a 750 km transmission line which will reach Pakistan through Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Afghanistan will be supplied with 300 megawatts of electricity through this project. The project, which features four countries mainly Tajikistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan, is expected to be completed by 2018. The DD converters of CASA-1000 will be established in Nowshera and Kabul.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has promised masses back home  he would end the menace of load-shedding by 2018, which happens to be the year his tenure ends and when Sharif’s government will have to contest elections again.

Pakistan has been suffering from an energy crisis since long which has hampered the country’s economic growth and had an adverse effect its production capacity. The country has also welcomed more than forty billion dollars of investment from China to construct the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which will also provide China an opportunity for a more shorter, viable trade route and Pakistan the chance to tackle its energy crisis.

PM Sharif is under pressure back home in Pakistan,where opposition parties have called for him to step down, after names of his children were disclosed as owners of offshore companies in the recent Panama papers controversy.