Pakistan Parliament meets to review Pakistan- US ties; World Bank approves $1 bn for projects; Pakistan political leaders show support for Iran gas pipeline; Pakistan’s Ministry of Commerce: As many as 1209 items have been included in the negative list an
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  • According to reports, Pakistan parliament will meet on a joint session of National Assembly and Senate on March 20, 2012 to review Pakistan’s ties with the United States. This comes after a long wait after the relations have been under strain over killing of Osama and NATO killing of Pakistani soldiers. The outcome of the meeting is anxiously awaited both in Pakistan and the United States because of its potential impact on the US-led war on terror at a time when Washington is preparing to draw down troops fighting Al Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan.1

    Meanwhile, according to reports, the World Bank said on March 20, 2012 that it would fund two projects totaling $1.09 billion, in energy and irrigation, aimed at supporting Pakistan’s growth agenda for reducing poverty. The World Bank’s executive board approved the projects, the development lender said in a statement. The $840 million Tarbela IV Extension Hydropower Project will add power generation capacity of 1,410 megawatts, contributing a crucial source of electricity for the economic growth and development of Pakistan, the World Bank said. The Bank noted that only 15 per cent of Pakistan’s vast hydropower potential has been developed.2

    In another development, Pakistani government leaders and senior opposition figures have urged the government to implement the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project, saying the project is a must for the country’s energy requirements. “We should go ahead with the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project”, he said to a question. Answering a query about the pressure on Iran’s peaceful nuclear programme the governor said, ‘If the west can have nuclear technology then why not Iran.’ Pakistan’s Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar speaking to IRNA said ‘We have very strong relations with Iran and we are trying to take our relations at the highest level.’3

    According to reports, Pakistan’s ministry of commerce said on March 21, 2012 that it has issued the Statutory Regulatory Order (SRO) for switching over to negative list regime to trade with India. According to the notification as many as 1209 items have been included in the negative list and would not be importable from India to Pakistan. Talking to APP, an official in the ministry said, of total importable items from India under the SRO, 137 items would be importable from India to Pakistan through land route from Wahgah.4

    In other developments, according to reports, India’s state owned oil and gas company GAIL has offered Pakistan a deal to import natural gas from India at a time when Pakistan is going through a gas crisis. GAIL proposing to extend to Lahore a natural gas pipeline it has recently installed from the west coast to Bhatinda in Indian Punjab, sources told Times of India. Bhatinda is around 25-km away from the India-Pakistan border. The company has plans to import liquefied natural gas (LNG) at one of its import terminals in Gujrat move this gas through the Dahej-Vijaipu -Dadri-Bawana-Nangal-Bhatinda pipeline to Punjab and then into Pakistan. According to a State Bank of Pakistan report from last year, Pakistan may experience its worst gas crisis in 2016 when the deficit is expected to hit 3.021 bcfd (billion cubic feet per day) as supply-demand gap increases.5

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