KARACHI: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday inaugurated the upgraded Geoscience Advanced Research Laboratories (GARL) in Islamabad, a move intended to augment the country’s mineral research capability amid the government’s push for foreign investment in the area, according to an official statement.
Mining and minerals have emerged as priority sectors for Pakistan as the government seeks to attract international companies to invest in resource extraction under its broader strategy of shifting toward export-led growth.
The sectors gained institutional prominence with the establishment of the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) — a hybrid civil-military body created to streamline investment and support foreign businesses interested in key industries — in June 2023.
The recent surge of international interest in Reko Diq, one of the world’s largest undeveloped copper and gold deposits located in Pakistan’s southwest, reflects this renewed focus.
“Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif inaugurated the upgraded Geoscience Advanced Research Laboratories (GARL) of the Geological Survey of Pakistan on Friday,” Sharif’s office said in a statement circulated after the ceremony.
“The event marked a significant enhancement of the country’s mineral research capabilities, drawing high-level attention to the development of Pakistan’s mineral sector,” it added.
According to the statement, the facility was originally established in 1991 and has undergone extensive modernization and now holds ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation.
The upgrade allows the laboratory to produce analytical data that meets international reporting standards, critical for mining companies and investors to estimate reserves and verify mineral potential.
Officials from the Geological Survey of Pakistan said the modernization and accreditation are aimed at bolstering investor confidence by providing credible, verifiable data to support large-scale projects.
They described the facility as a state-of-the-art hub for the mineral sector’s development, designed to meet the evolving demands of exploration and research.
The upgraded laboratories are also expected to support Pakistan’s efforts in rare earth elements, whose deposits have been identified in various geological zones across the country though exploration remains at an early stage.
Pakistan has already attracted American interest in the area, with media reports indicating that US Strategic Metals dispatched a first consignment of Pakistani mineral samples to the United States this month, including antimony, copper concentrate and rare earth elements such as neodymium and praseodymium.
Pakistan is believed to hold untapped mineral reserves valued at some $6 trillion, including copper, gold, lithium, coal, rock salt, and iron ore. Despite this, the mineral sector currently contributes only about 3.2 percent to the country’s GDP, and mineral exports account for less than 0.1 percent of the global trade in those commodities.
