Last week saw the Economic Cooperation Organisations (ECO) ten member countries approving the Islamabad Declaration and ECO Vision 2025 in its 13th Summit held in the federal capital.
ECOs Vision 2025 calls for enhanced regional cooperation in a variety of areas which include implementing strategies in trade, transport and connectivity, energy, tourism as well as economic growth and productivity. Given the paucity of space this column will attempt to focus on many of these areas in the coming weeks while limiting todays piece to ECOs energy vision and its potential.
Majority of ECOs member states including Iran, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Pakistan are well endowed when it comes to energy resources, which include massive coal, oil and gas reserves as well as abundant renewable potential including solar and wind. According to rough estimates the region has more than 25 percent share of the worlds energy resources while its population share is only 7 percent with over 440 million people.
Yet, although the extent of energy resources is unparalleled, on one end of the spectrum are countries such as Tajikistan which have surplus electricity during the summers that is wasted while others including Pakistan have crippling energy crises. Therefore to balance the equation and provide the necessary framework for enabling all member states to benefit from the aggregate energy potential, the ECO has historically placed emphasis on enhancing the regional cooperation in the energy sector.
The Islamabad Declaration 2017 also reasserted this agenda with the focus on augmenting cooperation in energy infrastructure development including oil and gas pipelines, intra-regional trade with an emphasis on electricity trade and access to affordable energy resources as well as energy efficiency and promotion of green energy investment.
An exciting prospect is the possibility of extending the on-going initiative of setting up an ECO Regional Market with the widest possible intra-regional power grid interconnection. In 2013 the ECO embarked on establishing an electricity market as a pilot project involving Iran and Turkey with additional members to join as the project gains momentum. The plan aims to harness the expertise of the consultants of both countries with financial and technical support from the Islamic Development Bank (IDB).
A small example of the potential a regional electricity market has is the recent CASA-1000 project which aims to provide surplus hydel electricity of Tajikistan to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Although the concept is ambitious and fraught with challenges, if executed it would change the entire energy dynamics of the region.
One of the key challenges to not just energy trade but trade in general is stability in Afghanistan which connects the central Asian and south Asian member states. The concern extends to projects such as CASA as well as the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline.
Consequently, the ECO has expressed its strong desire for a secure, prosperous and peaceful Afghanistan with a comprehensive ECO advocacy program for the country in the ECO Special Conference on Afghanistan to be held in May, 2017 in Kabul.
Another area of focus is energy infrastructure development which has been found to be wanting in the majority of member states. Even though energy resources are ample, the requisite transmission and distribution networks are crucial in utilisation of these resources and bringing the region at par with their global peers.
One other major potential exists in formulating the most efficient energy mix for individual member states if the regional electricity market kicks off. As member states such as Tajikistan and Kyrgyz Republic have enormous amounts of hydel potential, whereas Iran and Azerbaijan have massive gas reserves, a long term plan could involve each country dedicating resources to its most efficient form of energy production resulting in an optimum energy mix and significantly lower electricity costs for the region as a whole.
To sum it up, exciting times lie ahead for the ECO with limitless potential in harnessing the energy potential of the member states amidst increased co-operation and the successful implementation of visionary initiatives such as the regional electricity market.
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