ISLAMABAD (Hayat News): The Pakistan-China Institute organized a high-level regional conference titled “ASEAN-to-Pakistan Pathways: Attracting Chinese Investment for Solar PV Value-Chain Manufacturing” under the Green CPEC Alliance, aiming to convert Southeast Asia’s solar manufacturing success into practical strategies for Pakistan.
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Opening the event, Mustafa Hyder Sayed, Executive Director of the Institute, situated the discussion within broader global shifts reshaping solar supply chains. He pointed to the rebalancing of manufacturing hubs, post-tariff adjustments in ASEAN economies, and China’s expanding overseas clean-tech footprint as key drivers of investment relocation. He emphasized that Pakistan must move beyond policy announcements and focus on credible execution—ensuring clarity in incentives, readiness of Special Economic Zones (SEZs), and alignment between facilitation frameworks and on-ground implementation to make projects financially viable.
In his keynote address, Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed, Chairman of the Institute, underscored Pakistan’s deepening integration with China’s solar industry. He noted that solar panel imports reached approximately 17 GW in 2024 and nearly 17.9 GW in FY25, pushing total imports past 50 GW by September 2025. Pakistan’s share in China’s solar exports has grown sharply, rising from around 2 percent in 2022 to roughly 12 percent in 2025.
He highlighted solar energy’s growing contribution to national energy security, stating that it accounted for about 25.3 percent of Pakistan’s utility electricity between January and April 2025. With global installations reaching nearly 597 GW in 2024 and module prices falling to between $0.07 and $0.09 per watt during 2024 and early 2025, he described the current affordability of Chinese solar technology as a strategic window of opportunity. However, he cautioned that global production adjustments and policy changes could lead to price increases of up to 9 percent by late 2025.
He further noted China’s overwhelming dominance—over 80 percent—of global solar manufacturing capacity, supported by more than $50 billion in investments and roughly 300,000 jobs. Linking solar expansion to resource management challenges, he cited nearly 283,000 net-metering consumers by December 2024; net-metered capacity between 2.8 and 4.1 GW; about 650,000 solar-powered tube wells; and a 30 percent expansion in rice cultivation since 2023, raising questions about water sustainability and future dependence on battery storage and critical minerals.
Delivering her keynote titled “Pakistan’s Solar Demand Shock: Why Manufacturing is the Next Frontier,” Dr. Shezra Mansab Ali Kharal, Minister of State for Climate Change, stressed that Pakistan’s solar boom is largely import-driven. By November 2025, module imports from China had reached around 51.5 GW, including 16.6 GW in 2024 and more than 10 GW during the first four months of 2025.
She observed that much of the installed capacity is now behind-the-meter, with estimates suggesting 27 to 33 GW deployed across segments, while official net-metering capacity reached 6.8 GW by September 2025, up from over 2.2 GW and 156,372 prosumer facilities in June 2024. Solar’s 25.3 percent share in utility electricity during early 2025 has already created “negative daytime demand” signals in cities such as Lahore, Faisalabad, and Sialkot, intensifying the need for tariff reforms and market restructuring. With module prices declining to about $0.08 per watt and customs valuations reset accordingly, she described domestic manufacturing as essential for foreign exchange savings and value retention, noting that solar imports exceeded $2 billion by June 2025.
Muhammad Umar Farooq, Senior Research Associate at the Institute, emphasized that trade policy, geopolitics, and industrial strategy now influence solar investment decisions as strongly as cost and technology. He argued that ASEAN economies succeeded by pairing incentives with rapid execution and export-oriented planning. For Pakistan, he said, credibility hinges on enforceable commitments and realistic sequencing—starting with segments that are immediately investable and gradually deepening localization.
Dr. Christoph Nedopil, Director of the Griffith Asia Institute, highlighted ASEAN’s strengths in investor facilitation, policy consistency, and operational readiness. He stressed that Pakistan must address stability, SEZ performance, logistics, and risk protection to compete for the next wave of manufacturing relocation.
N. A. Zuberi, Senior Advisor at CSAIL, reinforced that investors prioritize speed, certainty, and enforceability. He urged policymakers to define a minimum “investor-ready” package capable of converting expressions of interest into firm commitments, cautioning against overpromising timelines that cannot be delivered.
Dr. Marlistya Citraningrum, Director of Communication and Outreach at IESR, discussed Indonesia’s approach to nurturing domestic industry while remaining attractive to foreign manufacturers. She advised Pakistan to carefully balance local value-add ambitions with investment bankability, emphasizing sequencing and policy predictability.
Lam Pham, Energy Analyst for Asia at Ember, explained how ASEAN countries attracted Chinese manufacturers through tariff-driven foreign direct investment strategies, trade agreements, supply chain proximity, and industrial ecosystem readiness. He suggested Pakistan adopt an “invest this year, operate this year” mindset, diversify export destinations amid shifting trade barriers, and pursue a phased industrial strategy—from modules toward higher-value segments like cells and wafers—while structuring duties to protect early-stage manufacturing without raising input costs excessively.
Dr. Erfa Iqbal of the Board of Investment focused on removing implementation bottlenecks that prevent SEZs from becoming genuinely plug-and-play. She stressed the importance of addressing approvals, infrastructure gaps, and coordination challenges within a 6-to-12-month window to enhance investor confidence.
Xu Tianqi from RDCY offered the Chinese perspective, noting that even within the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor framework, manufacturing decisions ultimately depend on risk-return calculations and execution reliability. Clear procedures, credible risk mitigation, and dependable policy delivery, he said, are crucial to securing commitments from Chinese private manufacturers.
Mark Lister, Co-CEO of Asia Clean Energy Partners, described Pakistan’s solar expansion as a strong market signal but argued that manufacturing investment requires long-term policy stability and strategic focus within the value chain. He recommended beginning with module assembly, mounting structures, and balance-of-system components, potentially expanding into inverters before gradually moving toward cells, wafers, and polysilicon. He also highlighted workforce development, industrial clustering in SEZs, recycling opportunities, and structured collaboration with Chinese partners as critical pillars of success.
Linh Hua from Vietnam’s Ministry of Energy shared insights from Vietnam’s solar market evolution, outlining measures that improved project bankability, including revenue certainty mechanisms, grid integration planning, curtailment management, and streamlined permitting processes. She offered transferable lessons relevant to Pakistan’s readiness without prescribing country-specific models.
The conference drew participants from think tanks, policymaking institutions, media, and the private sector, reflecting the interconnected nature of Pakistan’s solar industrialization agenda. By bringing together policy architects and market practitioners, the dialogue aimed to align ASEAN’s practical experience with Pakistan’s on-ground realities, laying groundwork for a credible strategy to attract the next wave of Chinese solar PV manufacturing investment.
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