Staff Reporter Islamabad
Prime Minister Imran Khan Monday said that being rich with huge potential, the minerals sector offered good returns for investment and could also contrib-ute to overall economic growth of the country.
The prime minister, chairing a high level meeting regarding mineral development framework here, emphasized that coordinated efforts between the federation and provinces were required to accelerate the minerals development.
The prime minister directed that a focal person be appointed at the earliest to act as a bridge between the federal and provincial governments and super-vise implementation of minerals’ development framework.
He said that international models be studied for lessons and capacity building of indigenous human resource to be employed for minerals’ development.
The prime minister directed that goals and targets for the mineral development framework be com-pleted within stipulated timelines.
Earlier, federal secretary petroleum briefed the meeting about Strategic Plan for Mineral Develop-ment.
It was informed that presently the minerals’ sector contributed less than 1% to the GDP and implemen-tation of the strategic plan would enhance share of minerals to 10% of GDP over the next 15 years.
The plan consists of harmonizing federal and pro-vincial efforts, technical outreach, database devel-opment, fiscal incentives, training indigenous hu-man resource and legal framework. The strategic plan is further categorized into short, medium and long term targets.
The meeting was attended by federal ministers Shaukat Fayaz Tarin, Muhammad Hammad Azhar, Asad Umar, Commerce Advisor Abdul Razaq Da-wood, SAPM Dr. Shahbaz Gill, DG FWO and sen-ior federal and provincial officers.
