Ahead of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting in Pakistan, which begins on October 15, Saudi and Pakistani businessmen signed 27 memorandums of understanding valued at $2 billion for investments across various sectors, including industry, technology, agriculture, food, petroleum, energy, mining and health.
Islamabad enjoys close ties with Riyadh, a leading supplier of oil to Pakistan. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and the country’s powerful army chief, Gen. Asim Munir, attended the signing of the memorandums in the Pakistani capital. The Saudi delegation was led by Minister of Investment Khalid al-Falih.
In a televised speech, Sharif hailed the memorandums and expressed hope that they would soon be translated into agreements. He added that his government would do its best to facilitate Saudi investments in the country.
Sharif emphasized that the relations between the two countries were “based on decades-long brotherly ties and were becoming stronger with each passing day.” He also thanked Saudi Arabia for helping Pakistan secure a $7 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Saudi Arabia, China, and the United Arab Emirates have confirmed to the IMF their $12 billion loan rollovers to Pakistan.
In August, it was reported that Pakistan had requested Saudi Arabia to increase its lending by about $1.5 billion from its existing $5 billion portfolio to help bridge the external financing gap for the IMF’s 37-month bailout package.
Meanwhile, Finance Minister Muhammed Aurangzeb said during a televised address that the recent PTI clash in Islamabad and the Karachi attack on Chinese citizens not only led to a loss of human lives but also caused significant economic damage.
“We’ve brought economic stability so we can move towards growth,” he said. “If you are protesting for the country, you need to think about its impact on the economy.”
“In Islamabad alone, 800,000 families have suffered because of this strife,” he stressed, urging people to come to the table for negotiations instead.
Regarding the economic losses, the finance minister noted there was a “Rs190 billion loss per day, including GDP, business disruption, and IT losses,” due to the law and order situation.
Speaking about the terrorist attack in Karachi, which resulted in the deaths of two Chinese nationals, the finance minister said, “Yesterday, our Chinese brothers who were killed, whose precious lives were wasted, we cannot estimate a cost on them.”
“I express my condolences to the government and people of China,” he said, adding that the victims were independent power producer (IPP) engineers with whom the power minister and he were negotiating.
“These are people, our brothers, who stepped up to help us,” he said. “So, terrorism, strife, or strike — when our economy is stable and we are moving forward — I appeal to my brothers and sisters not to take actions that harm the economy,” he stressed.
