ISLAMABAD: Pakistan anticipates the arrival of around 300 foreign delegates for the two-day Minerals Investment Forum 2025, where it plans to unveil a unified framework to promote mining and mineral investment opportunities across four provinces, Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.
Speaking at a news conference managed by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), Petroleum Minister Ali Pervaiz Malik said a number of memorandums of understanding (MoUs) and agreements for investments would be signed during the event to be also attended by senior government officials from China, the United States, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Azerbaijan.
The US delegation would also include representatives from the State Department, Geological Survey and Exim Bank, while companies from Denmark, Finland, Kenya and the United Kingdom would also be participating, the minister said, adding that Pakistan would use the opportunity to showcase its potential in rare earth metals and precious minerals for promoting responsible and corporate mining.
“Despite great potential in Tethyan mineral belt, spread across many countries, the mineral sector’s contribution was less than one per cent of GDP,” Mr Malik said.
Plans to unveil unified framework to promote investment opportunities across four provinces, AJK and GB
He added that a total of about 2,000 participants were expected to attend the April 8-9 forum that would not be limited to just discussions but also involve confirmation of a number of MoUs and agreements.
He said the major challenge for international investors to enter Pakistan’s mineral and mining sector used to be separate set of policies, rules and departments to deal with as there were six policies at the centre, provinces and regions, eight acts of law and 36 versions of rules which have now been evolved into a harmonised framework with a lot of efforts that would be announced during the two-day forum.
The framework had been developed and drafted by an international firm in consultation with another US consulting firm involving substantial fiscal incentives to attract investment based on lesson learnt from successful models in Indonesia, Kazakhstan and British Columbia. “The harmonised framework would be unveiled during the mineral forum,” he said.
Training programmes would be also launched on the
occasion for which agreements would be announced with
international companies for financing and technical
equipment and “a number of blocks adjoining Reko Diq block are going to be auctioned,” he said.
The minister did not agree with a questioner that the centre was taking over provincial roles in the mineral sector, saying “we are not capturing anyone’s mineral resource but only facilitating them. The ownership, royalties and other related rights and benefits still belong to the provinces,” he said, adding that a joint effort facilitated by the centre and supported by the armed forces would take the country forward.
He said the chief ministers of Sindh, Balochistan and Punjab had been invited and would be joining the even, while Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gundapur had assigned his adviser on finance Muzammil Aslam to represent him due to his own prior commitments.
Since the Tethyan belt resource was mostly located in Balochistan, a number of notables and students from that province would also be in attendance to promote mining in the interest of environment and local communities.
Mr Ahmad Hayat Luk, the managing director of the organising firm Oil & Gas Development Company Limited, said the mineral forum would be turned into a regular annual event and this year would mark the formal launch of feasibility study on the multi-billion-dollar Reko Diq project that according to him was the largest undeveloped mine in the world at the moment.
This would open up areas beyond Reko Diq for international investment, he said.
Published in Dawn, April 8th, 2025
