Islamabad
Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Shaukat Tarin Tuesday urged to adopt forward planning for dealing with the volatile energy prices in international markets and also to provide lost cost energy to industrial and domestic sides.
He was holding a meeting with the Federal Minister for Energy, Hammad Azhar and Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Power and Petroleum, Tabish Gauhar at the Finance Division, said a press release.
Power and Finance Division secretaries and other senior officers participated in the meeting.
Tarin also emphasized the importance of risk hedging to dampen the impact of recent fluctuations in global prices of crude oil and petroleum products particularly due to supply side disruptions amid COVID-19 pandemic.
He also stressed upon exploring cost-effective options such as renewable sources of energy for a sustainable energy equation by reducing reliance on expensive power producing plants in order to make the energy sector dynamic and sustainable.
Speaking on the occasion, Hammad briefed the participants about growing demand for energy, installed generation capacity, transmission capability and also outlined steps being taken for improving transmission and distribution systems for reducing costs and ensuring sustainability.
In his concluding remarks, the finance minister said the present government was cognizant of its obligation to fulfill energy requirements at affordable rates for electricity consumers.
To this end, the government was taking all possible measures to meet future energy demands, he added.
He assured full support and facilitation to the energy sector on the occasion.