Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2663 actions· ✨ 89 recent

On 8 September 2025 at Prime Minister House in Islamabad, U.S. Strategic Metals (USSM, Missouri) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Pakistan's Frontier Works Organization (FWO, Pakistan Army-affiliated and the country's largest miner of critical minerals) committing to an initial USD 500 million investment programme covering antimony, copper, gold, tungsten, and rare-earth elements, with an envisaged poly-metallic refinery inside Pakistan. Embassy Islamabad Acting Deputy Chief of Mission Zach Harkenrider attended the signing. The first shipment of rare earths and other critical minerals from Pakistan to the United States was dispatched on 2 October 2025, marking the operational start of the partnership. The instrument forms the strategic- minerals limb of a broader Pakistan–U.S. realignment paired with U.S. EXIM Bank's USD 1.25 billion financing commitment for the Reko Diq copper-gold project (announced 10 December 2025) — a single coherent bilateral package positioning Pakistan as a non- PRC source of refined critical minerals to the United States.

Pakistan's Ministry of Industries and Production, through the Engineering Development Board, launched the National Electric Vehicle (NEV) Policy 2025-2030 on 19 June 2025. The policy targets 30% of all new vehicles sold in Pakistan to be electric by 2030 and allocates an initial subsidy of PKR 9 billion for FY2025-26 to facilitate 116,053 electric two-wheelers and 3,171 electric three-wheelers (with 25% of the subsidy reserved for women applicants), alongside a build-out of 40 EV charging stations on motorways at 105 km average spacing. The policy is Pakistan's first horizontal EV industrial-policy framework, projected by government to save 2.07 billion litres of fuel annually and roughly USD 1 billion in foreign-exchange outflows on petroleum imports.

Pakistan's Federal Cabinet approved the National Tariff Policy 2025-30 (NTP 2025-30) in June 2025, with operative tariff reforms incorporated into the Finance Act 2025 effective 1 July 2025. The NTP restructures Pakistan's customs duty (CD) slab architecture from five slabs (0/3/11/16/20%) to four flatter slabs (0/5/10/15%) by FY2029-30, while phasing out Regulatory Duties (RDs) and Additional Customs Duties (ACDs) on 7,000+ tariff lines over four to five years. The policy targets cutting the trade-weighted average tariff from ~10.6% to below 6% and the simple-average tariff from 19% to 9.5% by 2030, underpinned by GTAP projections of 10–14% export growth and 5–6% import growth. Prepared in coordination with IMF technical assistance under the USD 7 billion EFF, the NTP is the statutory anchor for the sequence of Finance-Act SRO-based sectoral tariff revisions covering textiles/MMF, iron-and-steel, and chemicals/intermediates through FY2029-30.

Pakistan's Ministry of Commerce issued Statutory Regulatory Order (SRO) 750(I)/2025 on 4 May 2025 under Section 3(1) of the Imports and Exports (Control) Act 1950 (XXXIX of 1950), prohibiting (i) the import into Pakistan of goods of Indian origin by third countries via sea, land, and air; (ii) the transit through Pakistan of goods imported from India by third countries via sea and air; and (iii) exports from third countries to India via Pakistani sea, land, and air routes. The SRO was published in the Gazette of Pakistan Extraordinary (Part I) and took effect immediately. A clarification memorandum issued by the Ministry of Commerce on 8 May 2025 confirmed exemptions for Reshipment-on- Board (RoB) cargo and for shipments where the bill of lading or letter of credit was issued before 4 May 2025. The 10 May 2025 India–Pakistan ceasefire did not lift the SRO; it remains in force.

Pakistan launched the National Minerals Harmonisation Framework 2025 and the Mines & Minerals Act 2025 at the Pakistan Minerals Investment Forum (Islamabad, 8–9 April 2025), consolidating six regulatory frameworks, eight legislative instruments, and 36 rule sets into a unified federal-provincial licensing system. The framework — convened by the SIFC and Deputy PM Ishaq Dar — establishes a two-tier licensing structure (large-scale: PKR 500M+; small-scale: PKR 25M–500M), mandatory appellate tribunal, and a "Mines and Minerals Force" to counter illegal mining in Sindh and Balochistan. Fiscal-incentive reforms aim to raise investor IRR from 14.5% to approximately 18%, underpinned by Reko Diq as the flagship precedent for future large-scale foreign-capital mineral projects.

On 14 March 2025, the Provincial Assembly of Balochistan passed the Balochistan Mines and Minerals Act 2025 in a swift, sparsely debated session. The Act establishes the Mineral Investment Facilitation Authority (MIFA) under Section 22, a body composed of provincial and federal members but operating under the umbrella of the federal Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC). MIFA is empowered to designate "strategic" minerals with federal oversight, override provincial mining-department decisions, and channel licensing for the Reko Diq, Saindak and broader Chagai-belt copper-gold-REE deposits to investment vehicles aligned with the Foreign Investment (Promotion and Protection) Act 2022. The Act drew sharp criticism for recentralising mineral authority that the 18th Constitutional Amendment had devolved to provinces, and for omitting any community-participation mechanism. On 23 September 2025 Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti announced suspension of the Act by executive order pending re-tabling for further deliberation, after a joint meeting with opposition leaders.

Pakistan's Cabinet Committee on Energy approved the Oil Refining Policy 2023 for Upgradation of Existing/Brownfield Refineries on 7 August 2023, with Federal Cabinet ratification on 9 August 2023 and Petroleum Division notification to OGRA and refineries shortly thereafter. The policy provides a 7.5% deemed-duty incentive on locally-refined motor spirit (petrol) and high-speed diesel (with an additional 2.5% incremental incentive on HSD during the upgrade period) deposited into OGRA-managed escrow accounts to fund up to 27.5% of upgradation project cost, against a commitment by Pakistan's five brownfield refineries (PRL, NRL, ARL, PARCO, Cnergyico) to invest an estimated USD 4.5-6 billion to produce Euro-V compliant fuels. CCoE-approved amendments on 6 February 2024 extended the deemed-duty horizon to 20 years (or until petroleum-product price deregulation, whichever comes first) and tightened the framework for refineries that decline to sign Upgrade Agreements.

On 17 June 2023, the Prime Minister's Office issued a formal notification establishing the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC), an apex civil-military body chaired by the Prime Minister with the Chief of Army Staff and federal/ provincial leadership as members. SIFC operates as a "single window" to fast-track foreign direct investment in five strategic sectors: Defence Production, Agriculture and Livestock, Minerals, IT and Telecommunication, and Energy. The council is the principal vehicle through which Pakistan is channelling Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) sovereign capital — Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain — into headline projects including the Reko Diq copper-gold restart, Saudi/UAE minerals MoUs, and the 2025 Pakistan Minerals Investment Forum. SIFC received statutory backing on 18 August 2023 via the Board of Investment (Amendment) Act, 2023, which inserted Chapter II-A giving SIFC overriding authority over other laws.