KARACHI: Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources and the Chairman of the Board of Saudi Aramco will be visiting Pakistan’s port city of Gwadar on Saturday, officials said on Friday.
“Saudi energy minister, Khalid A. Al-Falih, is coming tomorrow to witness the development of Gwadar. The area allocated to them for oil refinery, he is coming to see that,” Ghulam Sarwar Khan, Minister for Petroleum and National Resources, said on Friday while addressing the media in the provincial capital, Quetta.
Khan said that the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is expected to be signed next month.
“The federal cabinet has already given its approval for the signing of the MoU. After signing the MoU, the foundation stone for the construction of the refinery would be laid in Gwadar,” he added.
“The Saudi energy minister is visiting Gwadar and will hold meetings with Pakistani ministers and Chief Minister of Balochistan,” Haroon Sharif, Minister of State and Chairman of Pakistan Board of Investment (BoI), told Arab News on Friday.
Saudi Arabia has agreed to construct the multibillion dollar oil refinery in Gwadar, located in the Balochistan province of Pakistan, for which the MoU is expected to be signed next month in the presence of a high-level Saudi delegation.
Pakistani officials said that they have finalized the MoU for the construction of refinery. “Overall directions have been agreed upon and the agreement will be signed at the ‘appropriate time’”, BoI chief told Arab News recently.
However, he dismissed reports that the MoU would be signed during Al-Falih’s visit on Saturday.
Saudi Aramco will construct the petrochemical complex which will house the multibillion oil refinery. “I am expecting around $15 billion investment from Saudi Arabia in the next three years. The inflow of investments for the oil refinery and petrochemical complex in Pakistan is estimated to be between $6 billion to $10 billion,” Sharif said.
Pakistan is hoping to attract more than $40 billion foreign direct investment in the next five years. “We estimate that roughly around $40 billion investment will be made by these three countries (Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and China) during the next three to five years,” Sharif had told Arab News during a recent interview.
Faced with a balance of payments crisis, Prime Minister Imran Khan visited Saudi Arabia twice, followed by a trip to the UAE for financial assistance.
The Kingdom responded with generous bailout package worth $6 billion. Islamabad has so far received $2 billion from Riyadh while another $1 billion is expected this month.
Apart from the balance of payments support, the Kingdom is expected to invest nearly $15 billion in Pakistan’s petrochemical and renewable energy sectors. Saudi Aramco and Acwa Power are the leading Saudi investors in Pakistan.
Similarly, the UAE has also pledged to extend $3 billion to Pakistan to help avert it’s economic crisis.
Islamabad is expecting a heavy inflow of foreign direct investment from Beijing after the signing of a deal with China which is being described as the second phase of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project. “We roughly estimated that around $15 billion to $20 billion investments will be made within the next three years during the second phase of CPEC,” Sharif said.
Saudi energy minister to visit Gwadar for oil refinery prospects
Saudi energy minister to visit Gwadar for oil refinery prospects
- Will be in Islamabad on Saturday to analyze development of the port city, Petroleum Minister says
- Expected to hold talks with the chief minister and a coterie of other top officials
Pakistan urges Afghan rulers to ‘rid their soil of terrorists’ at regional meeting in Tehran
- Iran hosts meeting of special representatives on Afghanistan from Pakistan, China, Russia, Central Asian countries
- Pakistan alleges militants use Afghan soil to launch attacks against it, charges the Afghan Taliban deny repeatedly
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s special envoy on Afghanistan Mohammad Sadiq urged rulers in Kabul on Sunday to rid their soil of “terrorists,” saying the move would inspire confidence in its neighbors to engage with the country.
Sadiq, who is Pakistan’s special representative to Afghanistan, was part of a high-level meeting hosted by Iran in Tehran to discuss issues related to Afghanistan. The meeting featured Afghan affairs representatives from Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, China and Russia, Iranian state news agency IRNA said.
Pakistan blames a surge in attacks on its soil on militants it says are based in Afghanistan, a charge Kabul denies. The allegations have caused tensions between the neighbors to rise, resulting in deadly border clashes in October that saw dozens of soldiers killed on both sides.
“It is imperative that the current de facto rulers [in Afghanistan] take steps to ameliorate their suffering,” Sadiq wrote on social media platform X.
“And the foremost step in this regard would be to rid their soil indiscriminately of all types of terrorists.”
Sadiq said he agreed with other participating countries during the meeting that the “threat of terrorism” originating from Afghanistan’s soil is a “big challenge” for the region.
“Also made this point that only an Afghanistan that does not harbor terrorists will inspire confidence in the neighboring and regional countries to meaningfully engage with Afghanistan, helping to realize the country’s immense economic and connectivity potential,” he concluded.
Officials from Pakistan and Afghanistan engaged in three rounds of peace talks in Türkiye, Qatar and Saudi Arabia since the October clashes but were unable to reach an agreement.
While Pakistan has vowed it would go after militants in Afghanistan that threaten it, Kabul has said it would retaliate to any act of aggression from Islamabad.
