ISLAMABAD, May 7: World’s renowned gold-mining company Barrick Gold Corp considers Pakistan an attractive place for investment because of the country’s fast-growing economy and investment-friendly policies, Canadian newspaper Toronto Star reported.

The Canada-based mining giant is already operating in Pakistan and plans further expansion of its enterprise in this country, the report published on Friday said.

“Pakistan, from a business point of view, is a better country to invest in,” founder and chairman Peter Munk told the company’s annual shareholders meeting.

Barrick had bought a stake in the Reko Dig copper-gold project in Pakistan for $100 million in February from Antofasta PLC, a Chilean mining group. The company will spend $20 million this year on exploration of new gold and copper deposits in Balochistan.

When its CEO Greg Wilkins came to Pakistan in connection with the said project, he was received by both President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.

“If a country has time to have its president, who’s in the middle of a politically charged region, sit down with Greg to encourage him to invest and invite a Canadian company to come in to develop the country’s resources, it shows you what a great country it is,” the report quoted Munk as saying. Greg Wilkins told the newspaper: “Barrick Gold Corp would rather do business in Pakistan than in some parts of South America, despite fears of Al Qaeda, because big miners don’t have to share their profits to operate there.”

At the shareholders meeting in Toronto on Thursday, he said the company was “eager to further invest in and explore Pakistan’s prospective geological belt along the Afghan border.”

Wilkins said the government of Pakistan was building roads and a shipping port (at Gwadar), besides bringing water and electricity to the area.—-APP