Mansoor Sadiq

Pakistan can earn over $100 billion in exports by processing and enhancing its abundant natural resources and minerals,, said a renowned expert. Fateh Shah Arif, Secretary General of All Pakistan Mines and Minerals Association (APMMA), told WealthPK that Pakistan is blessed with all sorts of natural resources and valuable mines and minerals, but successive governments took little interest in uplifting the minerals sector in Balochistan province and other parts of the country. Fateh said that Pakistan’s minerals are of high quality and quantity, and worth billions of dollars in the global market. He added that enhancing these natural resources could help the country overcome its economic crisis. “Pakistan needs to make concerted efforts to explore these natural resources, and also take help from China for value addition,” he said.

Fateh pointed out that with value addition, Pakistan has the ability to produce different types of chemicals highly valuable for different industries and manufacturing equipment. Currently, Pakistan with limited resources of exploration is simply extracting raw minerals and exporting at cheap prices. Fateh said there is an urgent need to transform these extracted natural resources into value added chemicals and elements. “Lasbela Chamber of Commerce and Industry is working on the valuation of various types of minerals. In this context, Lasbela Chamber in collaboration with the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) has set up a Minerals Processing Research Lab, but unfortunately this modern lab project faces a number of bureaucratic hurdles,” Fateh said.

“To get rid of the ongoing economic crisis and trade deficit, we need to localise the required chemicals used in the industry to reduce the consumption of imported chemicals,” he emphasised. Fateh also stressed that the minerals sector needed a formal chamber, display and showroom to achieve its full potential and scope in Pakistan.He said the government should sponsor and support the APMMA initiative for the establishment of the Minerals Chamber of Commerce, and declare the mining sector a formal industry. He appealed to the relevant authorities to include the non-traditional sector of producing chemicals from minerals in the investment strategy of the new Civil-Military Special Investment Facilitation Council. He said this would enable Pakistan to contribute significantly to the global trade of mineral products worth trillions of dollars.

Credit: INP-WealthPk