The current debate over Pakistan's mineral wealth presents an opportunity to reshape our economic future. These mineral resources present the possibility of new economic activity, industrial development, skilled employment, new export markets and investment beyond the sectors on which our economy has traditionally depended.
But the real wealth is not what lies under the surface. It is the productive economy and financial ecosystem Pakistan can build on top of it.
The question before us is how to convert geological potential into commercial realisation. Discoveries and breakthroughs must become feasible projects, licences must draw investment, extraction must facilitate competitive industries, and public resources must produce long-term benefits for citizens.
This requires more than mineral wealth; we need institutions capable of converting that fortune into national prosperity. According to the Pakistan Economic Survey 2025-26, mining and quarrying grew by just 0.38% in FY2026, accounting for approximately 1.40% of GDP.
This reveals the scale of the opportunity, as the category includes diverse activities, from solid minerals to oil and gas, whose performance varies. Nonetheless, the figures emphasise the gap between Pakistan's geological capacity and the contribution its extractive sector makes to the economy.
The way forward is not to lower our aspirations, but to raise the standard of execution. For instance, mining exports of Chile recorded around $63.25 billion in 2025.
Copper was 59% of its total exports, worth $36.28 billion. Chile's experience offers a valuable lesson: the greatest gains come when a country acquires the skills, suppliers, technology and processing capabilities that surround extraction.
Geological resources, specialised expertise, infrastructure and access to global markets can certainly generate an internationally competitive export sector. The Australian mining sector is another example: the mining and quarrying sector accounted for approximately $280 billion in inward foreign-investment stock in 2025, around 30.6% of the country's total inward investment stock.
This demonstrates the magnitude of capital that can be channelled when investors have confidence in taxation policies, commercial rules, infrastructure and institutional competence. Indonesia has gone one step further and pursued another important objective: it has created synergy between mineral extraction and its domestic industrial development.
Its realised mining-sector investment reached almost $12 billion in 2025. Its industrial policy seeks to intensify domestic processing and manufacturing.
Pakistan can certainly draw from this experience without assuming that every mineral should be processed locally at any cost. The objective must be commercially feasible value addition, supported by reliable energy, technology, skilled workers and access to international markets.
Saudi Arabia is also aiming to double foreign direct investment in its mining sector. Under its Vision 2030, the kingdom is anticipating increasing mining-sector capital investment from $12 billion in 2024 to nearly $25 billion by 2030.
These are targets, not realised outcomes, but what makes their approach more instructive is the effort to connect exploration with infrastructure, logistics, financing and competitive downstream industries. Over the last five years, the kingdom has reported a fivefold increase in exploration investment, signaling a long-term commitment to sector growth.