Hey
@Zaki any comments on this news?
Sir I never disagreed that the demand of generator is rising. As we discussed on other thread that last year Pakistan had imported generators of 200 billion rupees, it is quite possible that they may have imported generators worth 283 billion rupees this year. By the time I was in Pakistan, the price of average generator was:
1kw = 16,000 rupees
3.5kw = 40,000
3.5kw branded = 100,000
5.5kw = 70,000
6.5kw = 60,000 - 80,000
6.5kw branded = 200,000
I was once interested in import of generators before I had to come back to UK. The price I was quoted from China was
3.5kw = 175 USD FOB to Karachi
5.5kw = 280 USD FOB to Karachi
6.5kw = 293 USD FBO to Karachi
The price difference is the cost of warehouse, taxes, net profit of importer, distributor and point of sale etc. Then I also came to know that the government of Pakistan had their own way of calculating the price of generators and the generator I was going to buy for 175 USD for example will be determined the value of 300 USD in Pakistan. Which will effectively make me noncompetitive compared to others unless I have my ways to please the officials. Later I discovered from one of my relative who import goods from China that most of the trade that comes to Pakistan is not legal as it enters Tajikistan-Afghanistan and back to Pakistan instead of using Korakoram highways and the agents are responsible for determining the price of goods alongside custom officials on Pak-Afghan border so I spoke with one of the agent who told me that it doesn't matter about the value of price you bought. I will fix the price of 80 rupees per kg if less than 16,000 kilograms and 70 rupees per kg if more than that and you will get the product in your warehouse in Rawalpindi or Lahore. With that calculation it was possible to get the same generator from 293 USD to 340 USD at my warehouse in Lahore which literally means plenty of money to make but I gave up with such idea as its not in my blood to cheat like that but I did get the understanding that the import figure shown in the government record is just a fraction of the actual imports to Pakistan. The point I am trying to make is, with 280 billion rupees of legal import it is safe to assume that
1KW = 120 USD x 1 million generators = 120 million USD = 1000 MW
3.5KW = 400 USD x 1 million generators = 400 million USD = 3500 MW
5 KW = 700 USD x 1 million generators = 700 million USD = 5000 MW
6.5 KW = 800 USD x 1 million generators = 800 million USD = 6500 MW
Large generators of 25kw to 100kw are very popular in marriage halls, small factories and hotels etc. Each generator costs between 30,000 to 500,000 USD depending on the brand and your budget and I know quite a few places where such generators are installed and working off-grid / independently. The question is how its worth to the people when its 3-5 times more expensive than the cost of electricity from National grid?
The government says expect load shedding until December 2018, the average life of unbranded generators is 18 months anyway until you are willing to spend a lot of money for repairs. You know the main bazar in my city is adjoined by 3-4 other bazars with total shops of hypothetically speaking 2000. I am quite sure 99% of these shops have generators as they cannot rely on UPS back ups and customers from many surrounding cities comes to do shopping in that bazar, it is important for every shopkeeper to have generators. They are mostly selling clothes, bedsheets, curtains, shoes and money exchange shops etc so their business will come to halt if they cannot make the customers comfortable with fan and lighting. They may spend 1 hour to serve each customer and waste 100-200 rupees of petrol to run the generator but it is worth to them because if the customer only buys their product for 10,000 rupees, mostly 30% of that money is the profit. Such businesses cannot afford to have no electricity even for half n hour and they know that there will plenty of load shedding until the problem is resolved. They basicallay recover the cost of 400-800USD of generator within a month and cannot rely on the government to resolve electricity crisis as it has not happened since last 10 years.
Sorry for lengthy post, trust me I tried to restrain myself to keep it short 
