Islamabad December 20 2022: The federal government of Pakistan has announced the National Energy Saving Program, according to which marriage halls have been decided to close at 10 pm and markets at 8 pm.
While giving a press conference after the meeting of the federal cabinet, Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif said that it has been decided to close marriage halls at 10 pm, while markets and restaurants will be closed at 8 pm. All over the world markets will be closed till 6 pm, but we remain open till 2 am.
Khawaja Asif said that 20 percent of government employees will work from home, the economy will benefit billions by saving energy from various sources, this decision will save eight to nine thousand megawatts of electricity and 62 billion rupees will be saved.
He further said that we are going to introduce e-bikes for which the import of electric bikes has already started.
Pakistan is taking these measures to reduce import bill in order to save dollars as country has run a Current Account Deficit of USD 17.4 billion in fiscal year 2022 due to which reserves drop to a level that are barely enough to cover imports of 35 days in a time when country has to pay an amount of USD 75 billion in next three years on account of external debt payment.
SBP foreign exchange reserves for the week ended December 9 2022, were stood at USD 6,700 million, as per data released by the Central Bank.
