Pakistan’s mineral wealth remains trapped not beneath the earth — but within a governance maze that investors struggle to navigate.

Pakistan sits atop extraordinary geological potential. Copper, gold, chromite, iron ore, and rare earth elements together represent an estimated USD 5–6 trillion in subsoil wealth. Yet, mining contributes less than 1 percent to GDP, and foreign investment in the sector rarely exceeds USD 100 million a year. The gap between potential and performance is not driven by geology or commodity cycles. Increasingly, Pakistan’s real constraint is institutional: a regulatory environment so unpredictable that state processes themselves have become the greatest investor risk.

This reality — best described as mineral economic harassment — has become a structural deterrent. Investors confront delays, shifting requirements, overlapping mandates, and opaque decision-making. These frictions collectively create an uncertainty premium that even long-term, risk-tolerant mining companies struggle to justify.

What mineral economic harassment means?

Mineral economic harassment occurs when administrative or regulatory actions — unsupported by law or technical rationale — obstruct legitimate mining activity. The term does not imply intent; it captures the behaviour of a system where:

• Applications linger without written objection or approval

• Rules are interpreted differently across institutions

• Procedures lack timelines and standardised checklists

• Overlapping land allocations arise due to outdated maps

•Agencies impose requirements outside their statutory mandate

•Technical decisions depend on bureaucratic discretion

Pakistan’s most visible example remains the 2010 refusal to grant Barrick Gold a mining lease despite statutory compliance — a decision that ultimately led to a USD 6 billion arbitration award. Far from an anomaly, the case revealed systemic fractures still embedded across the sector.

A multi-agency governance........

© Business Recorder