Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz has said there is “significant evidence” of sizeable quantities of placer gold in the province’s five rivers, telling investors at a minerals forum in Islamabad that the resource should be surveyed, developed and turned into shared prosperity.

Speaking at the Pakistan Minerals Investment Forum on Thursday, she said gold was “literally flowing” in all five rivers, particularly around Mianwali and Attock, and that the provincial government was carrying out surveys and studies to establish how much of the metal was present. She invited local and foreign investors to help develop the resource, describing Pakistan as a “pot of gold” whose wealth lay both above and beneath the ground.

What the province says it has found so far

Maryam Nawaz was careful to present the gold as evidence rather than a proven reserve. The government’s position is that quantities are still being determined, and that international partners are being sought to explore the deposits and share the economic benefits. The forum’s official Punjab brochure records earlier work in the same direction: a Geological Survey of Pakistan study of a 32-kilometre stretch of the River Indus, from Ghazi Barotha to the Attock Khurd bridge, reported 2.8 million tolas of placer gold in the inferred category.

That figure is an estimate from a geological study, not a confirmed commercial reserve, and further exploration would be needed before any mining could begin. The chief minister’s remarks nevertheless put river gold at the centre of Punjab’s pitch to investors, alongside the province’s other minerals.

Iron ore, pink salt and other minerals

Maryam Nawaz said Punjab was rich in emeralds, marble, granite, gold, gemstones, copper, pink salt and iron ore. She pointed to Chiniot, where she said the district held an estimated 261.5 million tonnes of iron ore that could be processed into steel. She also said pink salt, long exported in raw form as crystals and small blocks, could earn far more once it was processed and sold as value-added products.

She told the forum that revenue from the provincial Mines and Minerals Department had risen from Rs10 billion to Rs40 billion over the past two and a half years, which she attributed to better governance and administration. The provincial government has also digitised the mining sector, with bidding, work orders, licence renewals and participation fees handled online and drone-based monitoring used to improve oversight.

Incentives offered to investors

To draw investment into mining and processing, the chief minister announced a package of financial incentives and one-window facilitation. Investors are being offered interest-free loans, concessional land leases and financing of up to Rs5 billion, with the provincial government bearing the interest cost. For export-oriented industries, zero-markup loans of up to Rs100 million are available, with loans at three per cent markup for investments from Rs100 million to Rs3 billion and five per cent for investments from Rs3 billion to Rs5 billion.

Customs duty would be waived or reimbursed for eligible investors in designated industrial estates, including a proposed mineral processing zone at Quaidabad in Khushab, where land would be offered on a nominal monthly lease for an initial 15 years. Maryam Nawaz said investors would be able to start projects without waiting for multiple approvals, licences and certificates, and pointed to Punjab’s network of motorways, expressways and highways for moving minerals to processing sites and markets.

The two-day forum, which opened in Islamabad on Thursday, has drawn more than 5,000 delegates from over 50 countries, with the federal government presenting Pakistan’s mineral sector as a destination for exploration, mining and value addition. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief of Defence Forces Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir are scheduled to address the conference on its second day.

Sources: Associated Press of Pakistan, 365 News