Pak-Saudi business forum 2024: Minister gives overview of investment opportunities

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Petroleum Dr Musadik Malik addressing the Pak-Saudi business forum 2024 gave an overview of the investment opportunities.

He said that historically we have had ties in traditional areas and formidable friendship. Now we would like to transition from friendship to a journey of growth and development and become partners.

We have started thinking now in terms of 360 security: food security, economic security, energy security. We now want to club into the global value chains. We have been producing a lot of commodities and Saudi Arabia has a lot of exposure to the oil economy.

But out there is an industrial 4.0 revolution for which both countries are ready and we would like to join our hands and move from where we are to this new destination.

Saudi Kingdom’s Vision 2030 ties seamlessly with Pakistan's economic vision. You can see growth, exports, resource and energy intensive clusters, drive towards new technologies, new business models. We have a lot of technology, many engineering schools, it is all going to come together.

He further added that we have same values, our family values are the Islamic values, it is the same thing. Pakistan’s northern areas offer good tourism opportunities for Saudi families.

The federal minister emphasised that we are going to cut through the red tape and lay out a red carpet.

There is an electrification revolution growing in the world and the backbone of this electrification revolution is going to be copper.

Pakistan is seventh-richest country in terms of copper. And there is no electrification revolution without copper. Together we can benefit from our copper reserves and Saudi's smelting capabilities. We have a growing population and a stable economy, which is poised to grow at four to five percent.

Saudi's huge crude resources could be locked for. As Saudi Arabia is digitising not just within Saudi Arabia but also creating a global footprint in terms of artificial intelligence and machine learning, Pakistan has huge number of engineers. we can use these resources to plug into global value chains.

Dr Musadik Malik invited the businesses from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to join hands together and explore the vast opportunities.

He highlighted that Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) is specifically created to lay out the red carpet for the investors and expedite the process.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024