Likely success in hydro, solar and wind.

Byline: KHALIL AHMED

Conversation with Muhammad Farooq Afzal - CEO, ITN Group of Companies

Profile:

Muhammad Farooq Afzal is a dynamic and a profound professional in the realm of Textiles, Information Technology, Business Consultancy, Tourism, and Event Management. He has been pursuing his entrepreneurial ambitions for last 22 years, locally and internationally. He has been playing an instrumental role in promoting trade and business ties between Pakistan and other countries since 2004.

Farooq has been continuously putting in his multifaceted ei!orts towards the cause of promotion of bilateral and multilateral trade. He has also been participating in TV talk shows regularly to speak about the economy, promotion of bilateral and multilateral trade based on the business opportunities lying in respective countries.

He holds a Master's degree in Business Management from Philippines and Bachelor's degree in Commerce from University of Sindh, Pakistan. He is also a Doctor of Homeopathic Medicine.

He is Founder President of Pakistan Turkey Business Forum and President/CEO of ITN Group of Companies which is involved in textiles, information technology, machinery, event management and general trading.

PAKISTAN and GULF ECONOMIST had an exclusive conversation with Muhammad Farooq Afzal about Renewable Energy. Excerpts of the conversation are as follows:

We need to understand that it is only renewable energy which is considered as clean, collected from resources which are naturally replenished on a human time scale such as sun light wind, running water, rain, tides, waves, and geothermal heat. Pakistan's energy mix is formed of 64% fossil fuels, 27% hydropower and 9% other renewable and nuclear power. While Pakistan has strong potential for producing renewable energy it is still far behind much of the world in developing these sources. Currently there are 81 different Power plants with installed capacity of approx. 40,000 MW plus of electricity and some more power generating projects are in consideration in future to increase electricity production in the country.

By the end of 2030, our requirement would be around 110,000MW. Despite such installed capacities, we have not been able to utilize the same and are short of 7,000MW due to line losses and mismanagement, resulting heavy load-shedding all over the country which is hampering industrial and services growth. This is unfortunate that in order to protect the vested interests of oil mafia, no...