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KARACHI: Pakistan plans to significantly upgrade Port Qasim to expand cement and clinker exports, the maritime affairs ministry said on Tuesday, outlining projects that include new berths, additional storage and improved export operations.

According to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, cement and clinker exports rose 23.7 percent in value and 28.7 percent in volume year-on-year, with earnings climbing to $329.79 million in FY25 compared to $266.51 million a year earlier.

Key export destinations included Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Madagascar, the United States and Ghana.

“Federal Minister for Maritime Affairs Muhammad Junaid Anwar Chaudhry has announced a series of major initiatives aimed at boosting cement and clinker exports by enhancing port infrastructure and operational capacity, with a particular focus on Port Qasim,” the ministry said.

Chaudhry said a sub-committee of all major ports, led by the Port Qasim Authority, had finalized recommendations to accelerate export capacity.

Planned measures include construction of two additional multi-purpose berths, a new 30,000-ton storage facility expected to start by end-2025 and permanent repairs to existing storage infrastructure targeted for completion by December.

The Port Qasim Authority will also work with the All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association to explore use of an under-utilized berth for clinker exports.

With export growth outpacing domestic demand, which weakened in recent years, Port Qasim has come under strain from limited berthing capacity, inadequate storage and logistical bottlenecks.

The government says the expansion drive is aimed at easing those pressures and strengthening Pakistan’s competitiveness in global trade.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s newly signed security pact with �������� is a NATO-style agreement covering a “comprehensive spectrum” of defense cooperation, Musadiq Malik, a federal minister and Islamabad’s focal person for relations with the Kingdom, said this week, stressing the arrangement was purely defensive in nature.

The two countries signed the Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement (SMDA) in Riyadh on Sept. 18, cementing decades-old defense ties into a formal pact. The deal, signed during Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s visit to ��������, stipulated that aggression against one country would be treated as an attack on both.

The joint statement issued after the signing of the pact stressed that the accord was aimed at developing aspects of defense cooperation between the two countries and strengthening joint deterrence against any aggression.

“I think it’s a very comprehensive agreement, and in that we have diffusion of technology, we have training of the forces, we have intelligence sharing, we have preparatory work in terms of joint exercises and a commitment that an attack on one country would be deemed as an attack on both the countries,” Malik told Arab News in an exclusive interview on Monday.

Asked if the full spectrum of Pakistan’s military power, including nuclear deterrence, will be available to ��������, he said no one had asked that question of the United States and France in relation to their similar agreements with England and Portugal.

“It’s nothing that people need to be worried about,” he continued. “It’s to make sure that our security, our joint security, our collective security gets strengthened. And that’s all we’ve done.”

“What is the full spectrum,” he added rhetorically. “The full spectrum is the comprehensive spectrum, that we would strengthen each other, and if anyone attacks either one of us, it would be deemed as an attack on both.”

Malik, who was part of the prime minister’s delegation during the signing of the agreement, said the accord would soon be implemented with technological cooperation, training of security forces and joint exercises.

Asked what Pakistan hoped to get out of the agreement, the minister simply said the pact reflected the sentiments of its people, who have always been willing to defend the two holy cities of Makkah and Madinah.

“What was implicit has become explicit,” he explained. “The people of Pakistan always wanted to lay down their lives while defending the two holy mosques. This pact reflects those sentiments.”