日经报道：中国电建旗下江西电建最后时刻退出巴基斯坦FESCO配电公司私有化竞标，反映中资对巴电力行业兴趣明显下降

ISLAMABAD -- A subsidiary of PowerChina has dropped out of the race to acquire one of Pakistan's largest electricity distribution companies, highlighting a significant decline in Chinese interest in the South Asian country's power sector despite decade-old ties in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Pakistan pre-qualified seven domestic and three Turkish companies last month to purchase the Faisalabad Electricity Supply Company (FESCO). The country also received expressions of interest from 11 companies, including seven Pakistani bidders, the three Turkish ones and a Saudi Arabian, for Gujranwala Electric Power Company (GEPCO).
The government is offering investors ownership of between 51% and 100%, along with management control, in FESCO, GEPCO and Islamabad Electric Supply Company (IESCO). The three public power distribution companies together serve more than 14 million consumers.
Pakistan had specifically conducted investor roadshows targeting China, Turkey and Saudi Arabia before launching the sales. The bidders submitted their expressions of interest between May and August.
The only Chinese company that initially showed interest was Jiangxi Electric Power Construction Co., a subsidiary of Power Construction Corp. of China, also known as PowerChina. But the Chinese company dropped out of the race for FESCO at the very last minute.
The way Jiangxi Electric dropped out puzzled the Pakistani side. While Pakistan's Privatization Commission did not respond to a request for comment, a government official, who spoke anonymously to Nikkei Asia, said, "The company submitted the [expression of interest] document in Mandarin [Chinese] and did not share any English version despite requests."
The official added: "Now we have assessed that they were not interested in the bidding process from the outset. We have no idea why they backed down since we were considering them a very serious contender."
The Chinese embassy in Islamabad did not respond to requests for comment.
PowerChina is Beijing's state-owned engineering firm that, through its subsidiaries, develops power stations in more than 130 countries and regions. The group entered Pakistan in 1987 and has worked on seven key power projects and invested $2.2 billion, according to the company's website.
The move by PowerChina to give up trying to purchase Pakistan's power distribution companies -- locally known as DISCOs -- surprised Islamabad, particularly because Chinese companies have been the major investors in Pakistan's power sector over the last decade. A number of power-related infrastructure projects were signed and completed under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Pakistan's portion of Beijing's flagship BRI global infrastructure investment program.
Multiple Chinese companies, including PowerChina, invested over $15 billion in more than a dozen energy projects, adding about 8,000 megawatts of power generation capacity and 4,000 MW of transmission line, according to the CPEC Secretariat website.
"Chinese companies that have investments in CPEC projects have been struggling with Pakistan's payment patterns for the past few years," Muhammad Shoaib, assistant professor at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, told Nikkei Asia. "And that's for contracts with sovereign guarantees."
Chinese companies have faced delayed payments on these projects. According to a recent local report, Pakistan's outstanding payments to Chinese companies amount to $2.3 billion.
"DISCOs are an even bigger risk that involves collection, reducing theft and line losses, and micro-level management," Shoaib added, referring to challenges in collections of stalled electricity bills and losses from power robbery and faulty lines that reduce the transmission volume.
According to Imtiaz Gul, executive director at the Center for Research and Security Studies, an Islamabad-based think tank, Pakistan has not just failed to honor its commitments in previous deals with Chinese power producers but also poses a major obstacle for international investors.
"[A major] issue is profit repatriation because of restrictions on dollars going out of Pakistan. So, companies find it very difficult to send their money back to their country," he told Nikkei Asia.
"That is why, as a whole, [Chinese] have lost interest in Pakistan's power sector."
Pakistan has also sought to renegotiate some CPEC power arrangements to lower electricity tariffs, extend debt repayment periods and reduce late-payment charges in recent years. However, Beijing turned down all such requests.
On the other hand, all three Turkish companies that prequalified for FESCO have also expressed interest in GEPCO.
"[Turkish companies] see Pakistan's distribution reform as an opportunity to export a business model and operational expertise developed in Turkey," said Khalid Waleed, a research fellow at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute in Islamabad, referring to Turkey's own electricity-sector restructuring that completed the privatization of its 21 electricity distribution companies by 2013.
Waleed added that Pakistan and Turkey have committed to expanding bilateral trade and investment ties beyond traditional defense and government-to-government relations.
"Electricity distribution, infrastructure, renewable energy and other commercially operated public services could become an important new layer of that relationship," he told Nikkei Asia.
Adnan Aamir is a contributing writer.