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ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s government and leading business conglomerates have pitched around 40 investment projects worth more than $28 billion to a visiting Saudi trade delegation, according to documents seen by Arab News, as the South Asian nation seeks to attract foreign capital to narrow its deficits and stabilize its fragile economy.

The “opportunities pipeline” was presented on Wednesday to a 16-member Saudi delegation led by Prince Mansour bin Mohammed Al Saud during a meeting of the Saudi–Pakistan Joint Business Council in Islamabad. The delegation, which arrived late Tuesday, held a series of meetings with federal ministers and received detailed presentations from the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) and at least 29 private companies. 

In a presentation titled “Opportunities Pipeline,” officials from the commerce ministry and SIFC outlined multiple projects for Saudi investors spanning key sectors including energy, mines and minerals, IT and telecom, agriculture and livestock, connectivity, tourism, industry, and privatization.

“Pakistani companies pitched about 40 projects to these Saudi companies and now they are in discussions on how to choose and which project to choose,” said Jamil Ahmed Qureshi, secretary at the SIFC, a hybrid civil-military body established to fast-track foreign investment, in an interview with Arab News.

The projects presented to the Saudi delegation included major industrial and infrastructure ventures such as the development of a $10 billion greenfield refinery, a completely new facility built from the ground up, and a $2.1 billion brownfield refinery to upgrade existing capacity. Officials also pitched a $1.8 billion integrated steel mill, the $3.6 billion Diamer Basha Dam hydroelectric project, and a $5 billion naphtha cracker complex, which would enable Pakistan to locally produce key petrochemical components currently imported for plastics and industrial use.

Other proposals covered transport, manufacturing, and agriculture. These included $2.3 billion worth of motorway projects (M6, M10, and M13), $500 million each for active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) production and injectable drug manufacturing, and another $500 million for a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) storage terminal. The list also featured a $250 million clean petroleum terminal, $210 million in shrimp farming and potato and onion processing facilities, $150 million in rice milling and maize processing, and $100 million in beef and mutton supply ventures. 

Additionally, Pakistan offered investment in a $50 million heritage hotel restoration project (Chamber House), a $200 million human vaccine manufacturing facility, $136 million grain silos, and $120 million in mixed-use luxury real estate developments.

Qureshi said that alongside private-sector proposals, the government had also shared potential projects for Saudi participation.

“By the end of the week, we will have some good announcement of memorandums of understanding and agreements,” he said, adding that some accords would be signed in Riyadh on Oct. 26.

“IT’S GOING TO BE DIFFERENT”

�������� remains Pakistan’s largest source of worker remittances, with inflows exceeding $9 billion last year. Riyadh also plays a critical role in helping Islamabad maintain its balance of payments by supplying oil on deferred payment and repeatedly rolling over about $5 billion deposited with the State Bank of Pakistan.

While �������� seeks to diversify its oil-dependent economy, Pakistan aims to stabilize its debt-laden finances and end its recurrent boom-and-bust cycles through reforms supported by a $7 billion International Monetary Fund loan. Islamabad hopes to position itself as a value-chain partner and emerging destination for global investors exploring markets beyond China and India.

Following Wednesday’s Saudi–Pakistan Joint Business Council meeting, the two sides are planning a follow-up forum in Riyadh on Oct. 25, where agreements and MoUs are expected to be signed at both the government-to-government (G2G) and business-to-business (B2B) levels.

“It’s going to be different. It’s not that regular B2B or MOUs that we are signing,” Commerce Minister Jam Kamal Khan told Arab News on the sidelines of the business council conference.

“Whatever is going to come out is going to be in the form of an agreement of structural and concrete steps which will be taken.”

The high-level visit follows a landmark defense pact signed between Islamabad and Riyadh last month to deepen mutual security cooperation.

“I see it as a very big prospect and opportunity and interaction and a new relation which is going toward progress in our economy, in our trade and bringing down Pakistan’s deficit,” Khan said.

“The leadership of both the countries have taken a step forward in making sure that our economic collaborations, ventures and progress toward a better economy, has been taken on a very higher level,” he added.

Last October, 34 MoUs worth $2.8 billion were signed between Pakistani and Saudi businesses. Asked how many had materialized, SIFC’s Qureshi said 16 had already become agreements.

“We are working on the rest of them,” he said.

KARACHI: Pakistan has recorded a dramatic reduction in blindness rates, from 1.78 percent in 1990 to just 0.5 percent today, according to a study by one of the country’s leading non-profit eye hospitals, which credited decades of joint effort by public and private stakeholders for the improvement.

Founded in 1985, the Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital provides free and subsidized eye care through a national network of hospitals and outreach programs. The organization’s extensive fieldwork, data collection, and partnerships with government health departments have made it a key reference point for national blindness statistics and trends.

Pakistan’s health experts have long cited preventable eye diseases, including cataracts, trachoma and diabetic retinopathy, as a major cause of disability. But as the population grows and life expectancy rises, genetic disorders and lifestyle-related conditions are expected to form a growing share of the country’s vision loss burden, experts warned on Thursday.

Speaking at an event on World Sight Day, which falls on Oct. 9 each year, prominent ophthalmologist Dr. Tayyab Afghani said while the country’s success against avoidable blindness was encouraging, the focus must now shift toward new and complex causes of vision loss.

“Genetic diseases are increasingly becoming a significant cause of blindness in Pakistan,” he said. “To address this, Al-Shifa Trust has established the country’s first ophthalmic genetics center, focused on early detection through community health education, qualified genetic counselling, and gene analysis.”

Afghani also warned that lifestyle factors such as diabetes and excessive screen time were fueling a rise in eye disorders among Pakistanis, particularly children.

“Apart from diabetes, myopia has reached epidemic levels in Pakistan and worldwide,” he said, urging families to limit children’s exposure to screens and promote regular eye exams through school screening programs.

Afghani called on the government to expand preventive eye care and rural infrastructure, warning that rising disease burdens could overwhelm public hospitals.

“The lack of trained specialists and unequal distribution of services continue to push low-income households toward expensive private treatment,” he said. “This leads to long-term economic and social impacts such as increased poverty and reduced productivity.”

To date, the Al-Shifa Trust has screened over three million children for vision-related issues nationwide. The charity runs six hospitals in Rawalpindi, Muzaffarabad, Chakwal, Kohat, Sukkur and Gilgit, and plans to open a Lahore branch by 2027. It holds more than 150 free eye camps annually, treating over 900,000 patients and performing 73,000 surgeries each year, nearly 80 percent of them free of cost.

In Karachi, the Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) marked World Sight Day with an awareness walk and seminar, where experts warned that millions of Pakistanis continue to live with untreated eye conditions.

Professor Jehan Ara Hasan, Pro-Vice Chancellor at DUHS, said that nearly 40 million people in Pakistan suffer from various eye diseases, citing national survey data. 

“According to available data, 49 percent of blindness cases are caused by cataract, while the remaining 51 percent are due to other causes such as glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, and macular degeneration,” she said.

Hasan said that despite the high prevalence of diabetes in Pakistan, many patients still do not undergo regular retinal examinations, which are essential for those above forty. 

“According to global statistics, there are approximately 39 million blind people worldwide, while 285 million people suffer from visual impairment or other vision-related disorders,” she added.

According to the Pakistan Survey Report 2022, around 485,000 people in the country are completely blind, while nine million have weak eyesight and require corrective glasses.