PM Khan tweeted that the federal government will bear all the financial burden for Reko Diq, this will help Balochistan.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Wednesday the federal government would bear the “financial burden” of developing a major copper and gold mine in southwest Pakistan, work on which has been stalled for nearly a decade by a long-running dispute.
Reko Diq, located in the Pakistani province of Balochistan, is one of the world’s biggest untapped copper and gold deposits.
Pakistan’s Supreme Court blocked a joint venture, Tethyan Copper, in 2013 from developing Reko Diq following a court case over how the contract had been awarded.
Pakistan’s government was later ordered by a global arbitration body to pay $5.8 billion in damages after Tethyan Copper took it to court.
“In line with my govt’s vision for uplift of smaller provinces, I have decided our fed govt will bear all the financial burden for Reko Diq & it’s development on behalf of Govt of Balochistan,” Khan said. “This will help usher in an era of prosperity for the people & province of Balochistan.”
The federal government has said it is in talks with Tethyan Copper about a settlement after the World Bank’s International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in 2019 ordered Pakistan to pay damages of $5.84 billion to Tethyan Copper. The venture had already sunk more than $220 million into the project before the project was blocked.
Work on the mine has stalled since then.
In May, a local consortium, National Resources Private Limited, said in a statement it had submitted a proposal to develop Reko Diq.
“The consortium has proposed (to the) government to develop and implement the Tanjeel reserves as a starter project, followed by development of the vast Reko Diq area reserves,” National Resources Private Limited said.
The Balochistan government has said it is studying the proposal, the financial aspects of which were not disclosed
