ISLAMABAD: After signing of the defense pact last month, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are fast moving to enhance economic cooperation and some major announcements are expected during Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s visit to Riyadh by the end of this month, Pakistan’s Federal Minister for National Food Security Rana Tanveer Hussain said on Thursday.
Hussain was part of a Pakistani delegation that included several ministers and other officials who visited Saudi Arabia last week to fine-tune an economic cooperation framework between the two countries.
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed a landmark defense pact during Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s visit to Riyadh last month. While the pact says any aggression against one country shall be considered an aggression against both, the two allies are also moving to further enhance economic ties after signing 34 memoranda of understanding worth $2.8 billion in October 2024.
“In the follow-up [to the defense pact], we went there [Saudi Arabia] to formalize [economic agreements] because when the prime minister goes to Saudi Arabia again, he will make some announcements,” the food security minister told Arab News in an interview. “So, we went there to follow up and see how we can formally see what can be done [and] in which areas.”
Hussain said Sharif was expected to visit the Kingdom by the end of October.
Asked what kind of announcements were expected, he said the prime minister would announce areas of cooperation and fix targets for each one of them.
The minister maintained the Kingdom was particularly keen to enhance cooperation in the agriculture sector like China, Iran and other neighboring countries.
“In Saudi Arabia also, they [the officials] said that agriculture is [the] number one [priority] where [they] wanted to do investment and trade,” he said, adding that the Pakistani delegation told the officials that their country had rice, meat, corn, sesame and other food items like dried camel milk.
Hussain said a private Pakistani company was already exporting dried camel milk to China and the US for the last two years, and that the Saudi government and their ministers also expressed interest in the product.
He also informed Saudi government had shown interest in investments in Pakistan’s livestock, agriculture and contract farming.
Asked if cooperation in these areas were expected to take a formal shape soon, he said: “They agreed that they will work with us on these projects ... I saw they were keen and passionate. They have made timelines for every step. We will finish this on Oct. 7, and that on Oct. 15 and something else on Oct. 20. This way they have planned out everything until December 2025.”
Hussain said under the second phase of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative, Pakistan will focus on agriculture technology transfer, infrastructure and farmer training.
“Agriculture is a major part of CPEC 2. We have discussed agriculture infrastructure, mechanization and other areas.”
He pointed out that decision-making on critical issues like crop yield projections had often been hindered in Pakistan due to outdated or inaccurate information. To address this, he revealed that the government was working with China on integrating advanced satellite systems and data collection tools.
“Right now, Pakistan does not have real-time accurate data to make decisions about food security measures, crop yield projections, etc. With China’s support, our decision-making will be better,” he said.
“I have proposed to them [the Chinese] to start pilot projects in different areas of Pakistan so that farmers could learn best practices for better growth,” he added.
