ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on Thursday arrived in Beijing to open talks on power sector structural reforms suggested by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), two government sources said.

He held a meeting with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing, they said, and added that the finance minister together with Power Minister Awais Leghari is leading a delegation, which will take up several proposals with the Chinese side, including reprofiling of nearly $15 billion energy sector debt.

The countries, which share a border, have been longtime allies.

Rollovers or disbursements on loans from China have helped Pakistan meet its external financing needs in the past.

Pakistan’s finance ministry, junior Finance Minister Ali Pervaiz Malik, and the Chinese finance ministry didn’t respond to a request for a comment.

Both the finance and power ministers told Reuters in interviews last week that they will be discussing the power sector reforms in their Beijing visit, though they did not specify the timing.

China has set up over $20 billion worth of planned energy projects in Pakistan.

The reforms has been suggested by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which this month agreed on a $7 billion bailout for the heavily indebted South Asian economy.

Pakistan’s power sector has been plagued by high rates of power theft and distribution losses, resulting in accumulating debt across the production chain — a concern raised by the IMF.

The government is implementing structural reforms to reduce “circular debt” — public liabilities that build up in the power sector due to subsidies and unpaid bills — by 100 billion Pakistani rupees ($360 million) a year, Leghari has said.

Poor and middle-class households have been affected by a previous IMF bailout reached last year, which included raising power tariffs as part of the funding program that ended in April. 

PIR PATHO, Thatta: Around a thirty-minute drive from the southern Pakistani city of Thatta stands a stone watchtower that, according to some historians, was used by Arab General Muhammad Bin Qasim during the Umayyad campaigns in India.

No wonder then that the building in the tiny, barely populated town of Pir Patho on the coast of Pakistan’s southern Sindh province has come to be popularly called the Muhammad Bin Qasim Watchtower, its weathered stone structure whispering tales of the region’s Arab past.

Qasim led the conquest of Sindh from 708 to 711 and established Islamic rule throughout the region, serving as governor of Sindh from 712 until his death in 715. Some historians say the watchtower was used for navigation by ships during Arab rule of Sindh. Others says it was mostly used to look out at small cargo-laden ships that arrived from the ancient Indian port of Debal, among others, before carrying on with their journeys up north along the Indus River.

“This used to be a watchtower for ships that would pass by,” said Sarfaraz Nawaz, an official at the Sindh Culture Department. “It is named after Muhammad bin Qasim and is believed to have been built in that era.”

Historian Dr. Muhammad Ali Manjhi said there was evidence that ships arriving from Debal and other ports would require clearance from here to continue traveling upstream, though he informed the watchtower came to be named after Qasim only after the creation of Pakistan in 1947.

“They did not originally call it Muhammad bin Qasim Tower,” Manjhi told Arab News. “They used to call it the Pir Patho Tower.”

The town of Pir Patho is home to several other archaeological sites, including a Mughal-era mosque, old graveyards and the shrine of Sufi saint Sakhi Jamil Shah Dataar. The area is also known for a major earthquake in the 17th century, in which 50,000 people are believed to have perished, Nawaz said.

A “huge city” once existed at the site of Pir Patho, which was devasted when the Indus River changed its course, Nawaz said, while deadly floods in 2010 once again hit Pir Patho and damaged the historic watchtower.

The Sindh Endowment Fund Trust in 2016 restored the 45-feet-tall tower, which has a circumference of around 65 feet, to its former glory, using kiln-baked bricks and stones.

Nawaz mentioned that although it is unknown who built the tower, it remains a significant landmark.

“Pir Patho was a very important city because of its strategic location. Similarly, the watchtower played a crucial role in guiding ships arriving from the sea for their northward journey,” he said.