by Naim-Ul-Karim
DHAKA, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- This year's Power and Energy Week, a fair on electricity equipment and associated businesses with a theme of Anirban Agami (Indomitable Future), kicked off on Thursday in Dhaka's Bashundhara Convention Center.
Scores of local and international firms including Chinese ones are participating in the fair to showcase their products and services.
Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the power and energy week and reiterated her government's commitment to providing electricity to every household. She called upon the public to maintain austerity in using power in their houses and workplaces to achieve the goal.
Bangladesh's power generation capacity has now reached 20,000 MW with the total number of consumers exceeding 30 million from 18 million about 10 years ago, Hasina said.
The Bangladeshi government planned to generate 60,000 MW electricity by 2041, 40,000 MW by 2030 and 24,000 MW by 2021.
The number of people having access to electricity was only 47 percent in 2009, which now surged to 90 percent, and per capita power consumption rose to 464 KWh from 220 KWh in 2009.
To transform its power sector development dreams to reality, the Bangladeshi government has long been seeking Chinese support.
As part of that, Bangladesh sought funds from China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) on Wednesday.
Bangladeshi State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid renewed call for Chinese support as a high-powered AIIB delegation headed by Vice President Daniel Grian Alexander was on a five-day visit to Bangladesh.
Hamid informed the AIIB delegation that Bangladesh was in need of 82 billion U.S. dollars investment in the energy sector by 2041.
Hamid earlier told Xinhua that Bangladesh was looking to China for help to build a 12-billion-U.S. dollar major power hub at Payra, 204 km south of capital Dhaka.
The Bangladeshi government planned to develop the power hub which has a combined electricity generation capacity of about 9,000 MW, he added.
In March 2016, Bangladesh signed an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract with a consortium of two Chinese firms for the installation of some 1.56-billion-U.S. dollar coal-fired power plant in the Payra Power Hub.
