Consensus reached in trilateral dialogue

By Masood Sattar Khan
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

China, Afghanistan and Pakistan held in-depth discussions and reached consensus on cooperation against COVID-19, the Afghan peace and reconciliation process, and trilateral cooperation.

According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, consensus was arrived at the third round of China-Afghanistan-Pakistan trilateral Vice Foreign Ministers' Strategic Dialogue held via video link on July 7. 

The Chinese Vice Foreign Minister, Luo Zhaohui, Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister, Mirwais Nab, and Pakistan's Foreign Secretary, Sohail Mahmood, co-chaired the dialogue. 

According to the joint news release of the video conference, the three sides attached great importance to the China-Afghanistan-Pakistan trilateral cooperation and vowed to continue to vigorously implementing the outcome of the third China-Afghanistan-Pakistan Foreign Ministers' dialogue. 

The three sides reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening communication and coordination besides enhancing mutual trust and cooperation under the trilateral cooperation mechanism. 

They agreed to further the cooperation against COVID-19, call on the international community to jointly prevent discrimination and stigma, support the World Health Organization's leading role in coordinating global COVID-19 response, promote international cooperation on joint prevention and control, and safeguard public health security in the region and beyond.

Coronavirus Update: No respite in Sindh

By Mukhtar Alam
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

Sindh witnessed no decrease in its daily COVID-19 deaths for the second day running, as the provincial health authorities on July 7 confirmed yet another 42 fatalities, with 1,388 new positive cases, taking the death tally to 1,614 and total infections to 97,626. 

According to official data, Sindh’s number of daily deaths had almost doubled on the previous day with 46 deaths on July 6. An average about 34 patients died daily during a period from July 1 to 7. 

According to the health department’s daily COVID-19 summary, a total of 9,317 tests were conducted during the last 24 hours, pushing the number of people so far tested against the lethal virus to 524,222 for the province which meant that the overall infection rate in Sindh remained about 19%. 

In the meantime, a Sindh health department website, updated at 8 pm on July 7, showed the number of coronavirus confirmed cases as 97,805, with 1,642 deaths, while number of people having recovered from the diseases cam as 55,620. 

The Sindh Chief Minister, Syed Murad Ali Shah, in his daily statement on COVID-19, said that 650 patients were reported critically ill during the last 24 hours ending at 9 am on July 7 and 76 of them were put on ventilators.

According to reports, the daily infection rate was found about 15% on July 7, against 14% of July 6, which was 20.75% on July 5. 

Karachi reported the maximum number of 759 among the districts of Sindh, followed by Khairpur (86), Hyderabad (71), Sanghar (68), Umerkot (66), Shaheed Benazirabad (64), Sukkur (48), Kashmore (41), Badin (38), Jamshoro (37), Naushero Feroze (27), Matiari (16), Mirpurkhas (16), Tando Allahyar (14), Shikarpur (10), Jacobabad (7), Tando Mohammad Khan (7), Larkana (4), Dadu (4), Kambar Shahdadkot (3), and Ghotki (2). 

Of the 42 infected people who died on July 7, 38 belonged to Karachi, including 29 men and 9 women. The men were aged from 28 to 88 years while women were in the age brackets of 55 to 84 years. 

Hyderabad registered deaths of two women and one man, who were aged from 55 to 93, while 70-year-old man died of COVID at Khairpur. However, health department did not provide details of the deceased people’s hospitalization or their isolation at homes. 

According to the official data, Karachi had the maximum number of 75,204 cases of infection, with 1,372 deaths, since February 26 when it reported the first COVID case of the country, followed by Hyderabad (3,408 with 52 deaths), Sukkur (2,959, with 22 deaths), Ghotki (2,549, with 10 deaths), Khairpur (2,016, with 10), Larkana (1,757, with 29 deaths), Shaheed Benazirabad (1,001, with 5 deaths) and other districts. 

It was further learnt that 22 COVID-19 laboratories across the province performed 9,317 tests, against their collective capacity of 9,300, during the last 24 hours, out of which 1,974 were found positive.

Meanwhile a WHO Sindh sub-office report said that COVID-19 laboratories at Karachi conducted 8,137 tests on July 6, while those at Hyderabad performed 4,287 tests, followed by Sukkur (56). The percentage of positive was highest in Karachi with 30. 

Only 5% of the positive cases were admitted in hospitals, while one per cent in government isolation centres and the remaining (95%) active cases were in home-isolation.

China’s maize-soybean technology brings bumper harvest in Punjab

By Masood Sattar Khan
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

The harvest of maize-soybean strip inter-cropping demonstration in Bahawalpur, Punjab, was completed on July 6. The yields of soybean and maize reached 1,304 kg/ha and 8,596 kg/ha respectively, which exhibited satisfactory results.

This was indeed encouraging news for local farmers who desired growing soybean without curbing the cultivation of maize, the Gwadar Pro, a Chinese website, reported July 7. 

Maize harvest in this inter-cropping field outdistanced the country’s average maize yield which was only around 5,000 kg per hectare. Meanwhile, the farmers received considerable soybeans as an additional return. 

As the selling price of soybean was two to three times that of maize, when comparing the two crops as a whole, the overall economic benefit had been significantly improved. 

“If you calculate the total benefits, maize-soybean inter-cropping will be the best system in terms of income and ecological sustainability,” Muhammad Ali Raza, a Pakistani student of China’s Sichuan Agricultural University, remarked. 

Having been trained under the guidance and support of Professor Yang Wenyu, he is credited to have brought this technology from China to Pakistan. 

There’s a lack of soybean production in Pakistan. Till now Pakistan has relied on imports to meet the soybean needs. 

“Now increasing soybean area is encouraged in Pakistan. For farmers who are not ready to reduce their maize area, the best available option is to use the inter-cropping tech,” Ali stated, adding that Prof Yang was satisfied with the yield data and provided his professional advice for future planting.

In his opinion, the maize yield could have been lifted more if double quantity of fertilizer was applied to each unit length because in the inter-cropping filed the number of maize plants is twice as many as that in the pure maize field.

Furthermore, selecting shade-resistant soybean varieties is also a key point, and the yield of soybean can reach a new high. It’s also learnt that after COVID-19 pandemic ends, specialized machinery such as planters and harvesters will be introduced to Pakistan to further boost the production efficiency.

Massive potential of green energy in Pakistan

By Masood Sattar Khan
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

The green energy including hydropower potential in Pakistan is about 100 GW, but the explored potential was 56,770MW. By the end of 2019, China had participated in 24 hydropower projects in Pakistan, with an installed capacity of about 12,282 MW.

Among them, there are 9 projects under construction with an installed capacity of 6680 MW, 15 projects have been built, with an installed capacity of 5602 MW. 

These details were revealed on July 6 by the China Renewable Energy Engineering Institute (CREEI) in its report on the development of China’s foreign cooperation on renewable energy sector in 2019. 

The cooperation on renewable energy sector, such as hydropower, wind power and photovoltaic power, between China and international community has been enhanced in recent years. 

China has established 58 bilateral cooperation projects and participated in 33 multilateral cooperation projects with other countries including Pakistan. 

The report mentioned that Pakistan had timely adjusted its renewable energy development goals and policies in 2019, according to national development requirements and the latest demand. 

“Pakistan is rich in clean energy resources and has great potential for development. Thanks to CPEC, China and Pakistan have deepened cooperation in this field.” 

According to the report, hydroelectric power is still the most important resource of renewable energy.

The 64 countries along BRI have become the most popular areas for hydropower investment, such as Pakistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan. Those countries, with rich hydropower resources and low degree of exploitation, have huge potentials to develop hydropower.

China has established cooperation on hydropower with several countries including Pakistan. Ranked by the scale of projects, among the top 20 countries with China participating in hydropower cooperation, Myanmar has 39 projects with a scale of 20,858 MW while Pakistan has 24 cooperation projects with a scale of 12,282 MW.

Regarding wind power, by 2030, there will be a triple increase of onshore wind and tenfold increase of offshore wind around the globe while a large-scale electrification will be achieved.

China accounted for seven of the world's top 10 wind power developers by installed capacity in 2019, and all the top four. The scale of China's foreign cooperation on wind power has reached 6424 MW, mainly in onshore wind power and in Asia-Pacific region.

Besides Australia and Argentina, Pakistan is another important partner who has deeply cooperated with China on wind power sector. According to the report, Pakistan is rich in wind energy resources, with high annual average wind speed, exceeding 7 m/s, stable wind direction and good wind energy quality. If it can be developed and utilized, it can meet 5-10% of Pakistan's electricity demand.

This report also analyzed the development of photovoltaic power, biomass energy, geothermal energy, photo-thermal power, and other renewable energy. China’s cooperation with Russia, Britain, Pakistan, Switzerland and seven other countries has further deepened in 2019.

DS Railways meets container handlers

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

The Divisional Superintendent, Pakistan Railways, Karachi, Arshad Salam Khattak, held a meeting with representatives of container handlers, associated with the freight operations of Pakistan Railways, at his office on July 7. 

The objective of the meeting was to devise a coherent strategy between Pakistan Railways and container handlers in line with the targeted goals to be achieved during the FY 2020-21 started with effect from July 1, 2020.

"Pakistan Railways' freight-related plans and strategies could not be accomplished without taking on board stakeholders" the DS remarked, adding that the freight service was the lifeline of Pakistan Railways and reorientation of the business processes was being carried out.

The container handlers, appreciating the initiative of engaging them, informed the DS about the issues confronted by them. 

The DS, right away, directed the concerned officers for resolving the issues of container handlers and for facilitating them fully. 

Meanwhile the Karachi Division is contemplating provision of additional lines at Jumma Goth and opening up service from Coal Load Out Station at Bin Qasim. 

The DS was accompanied by Deputy DS, Fateh Mohammad Janwri, Divisional Transportation Officer (Division), Ishaq Baloch, and Divisional Transportation Officer (Ports) Ghulam Farid Asad.