Embassy of the Republic of Korea to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan

H.E Remarks Power Forum 2013
Serena Hotel, ISB, 4 Dec
1. His Excellency, Chaudhry Abid Sher Ali, State Minister for Water and Power
2. Honorable Mr. Mohammad Zubair, Chairman, Board of Investment
3. Mr. Rehan Hashmi, Member National Assembly and Advisor to KOTRA
4. Mr. Lee Seong-ho, Director General, Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, Korea
Honorable Guests from Korea and Pakistan,
ASSALAM-O-ALAIKUM and Good Morning

It is indeed a great pleasure and honor for me to welcome all of you here in Islamabad to attend this “Power Forum”.

This forum will evaluate Pakistan’s power sector overall market situation which looks very attractive. It will also help in finding the right local development partners from both public and private sectors and making joint venture with them ultimately may pave the way to materialize the investment in the field.

At present, Pakistan is facing daunting energy challenges as electricity demand and supply gap has widen to 5000-6000 megawatt in peak time, with annual increase of at least 10 percent in the demand, while, on the other side, supply is not only un-sustain but also expensive which had halted the industrial production led economic growth cycle of Pakistan.

As crisis itself is opportunity, Pakistan present power crisis could be served an opportunity to devise a national strategy to meet the future challenges of Pakistan.

The New Pakistani government led by Prime Minister Sharif has taken various short and long term measures to soften the situation like payment of outstanding dues to power generation companies, establishing special energy parks, new hydropower projects commencement and formulating new power policy 2013 by with the target of eliminating the power shortage in the country till end 2017.

We hope all these measures will bring the country back on track of development and prosperity.

Korea strongly support and stands together with new Pakistani Government in its efforts of economic revival and resolving the energy crisis at top priority.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Korea is already a leading hydropower development partner of Pakistan and its companies such as K-water, Sambu E&C, KOSEP or Korea South-East Power company, Hyundai Engineering, Daewoo E&C etc are working very intensively on about 1500 megawatt hydropower projects which are amounted more than 3 billion dollars.

Today, 24 leading Korean power sector companies’ representatives are here to assess the business potential of the country. This is vivid testimony to the growing interest of Korean business community in this country, particularly in the power sector.

Dear Excellencies,

I firmly believe, Government of Pakistan will respond to the visiting delegation by offering a lucrative business package at preference. At the same time, I hope it will make further efforts to satisfy the already stationed Korea companies which definitely will be role-models for others to mark Pakistan as priority destination for their businesses.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is also noteworthy to say here that this year marks as 30th anniversary of our diplomatic ties. Therefore, both parties are keen to make the present relations more dynamic and diversify into mutual interest areas, where, we can contribute towards our people’s welfare in a better manner.

Therefore, it’s a right time to take a pragmatic approach and to engage in business to business dialogue which surely will create a synergy effect among the main stakeholders to get the fruits timely.

In the last, I would like to express my deep gratitude to all those who did a lot of efforts to make this forum possible especially to KOTRA, Korea trade-investment promotion agency and the speakers from Sri Lanka, Korea and Pakistan.


I would like to thanks once again for coming today and look forward to hearing a constructive debate at this Multinational Power Forum.

Thank you very much - Bohot Shukria