Saudi Arabia Offers to Buy 15% Stake in Reko Diq
Wire desk byline Sourced from Xinhua, Dawn, Arab News, Anadolu and Minute Mirror. Translated and abridged by the GSRRA Desk.
Saudi Arabia has offered to buy a 15 percent stake in Pakistan’s Reko Diq mining project, alongside a substantial grant for infrastructure development around the mining area.
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) through Manara Minerals proposed to acquire 15 percent of the federal government’s 25 percent share in the project. Pakistan will form a negotiation committee to review the offer and recommend a final price to the federal cabinet, reported Express Tribune.
Scottish Company Secures £53 Million Deal to Supply Mining Equipment to Reko Diq
The Saudi proposal also includes a grant for constructing the Mashkhel-Panjoor road. The Ministry of Economic Affairs is in discussions with the Saudi Fund for Development to finalize this road project.
Pakistan aims to maximize the offer price by encouraging Saudi Arabia to pay upfront to local companies holding shares in the project.
The federal government is also negotiating additional financial support from Saudi Arabia, including a $5 billion investment in mining and agriculture by June 2025.
As part of the Reko Diq project’s broader financing plan, the US Export-Import Bank has expressed interest in providing up to $2 billion in loans. The project’s total cost is estimated at $6-6.5 billion.
Reference Link:- https://propakistani.pk/2024/08/27/saudi-arabia-offers-to-buy-15-stake-in-reko-diq/
Zamir Ahmed Awan is the founder and Chair of the Global Silk Route Research Alliance, a think tank in Islamabad. He studied engineering at Shanghai University in the 1980s, and years later he went back to China as Pakistan's science counsellor in Beijing, from 2010 until 2016, working on science and higher education cooperation between the two countries.…
