THIS refers to Salman Shah’s article on the mineral endowment of Afghanistan and Pakistan and its economic potential (Sept 27). This is an extremely thought-provoking issue which needs to be addressed, the sooner the better, as due to the flawed economic vision considerable time has already been lost in developing the mineral sector of Pakistan and emphasising its role in Afghanistan, in particular, and ECO countries, in general.

It is worth mentioning that the geological contiguity is not even restricted by geographical continuity. The ECO region, including Afghanistan and Pakistan, has a very fascinating and complex geo-tectonic setting in terms of plate tectonics concepts. It is composed of a collage of continental blocks that came together over the past 15 million years and all major mineral deposits mentioned in the article are present with classic examples in the region.

Orogenic and porphyry copper with gold, silver, molybdenum are known to occur in Tethys belt. Zinc, lead, antimony, nickel vanadium and rare earth minerals are also present besides precious stones and minerals. Coal and other industrial and sedimentary rocks and minerals are found in huge quantities in these regions. However, most of the region is either unexplored, insufficiently explored or at best under-explored. Serious efforts are needed by the regional countries, particularly on the part of Pakistan, to upgrade and establish institutions to work for sustainable development of the mineral sector.

As a first step, a proposal which was already under implementation with the help of the assistance of the World Bank a few years back when I was DG, GSP and now is dormant to establish geo-data centres at federal and provincial levels need to be pursued.

In a meeting of ECO Mineral Experts group on minerals during 2005-06, it was also decided to establish geo-data centres in all the regional countries of ECO and Iran was nominated as a coordinator country.

Iran has established this important data base of geo-data and the rest of the countries are still working on it.

This public-private partnership institute of mineral modeling and development should prepare mineral study reports for investment and development at the national and international level. The technical laboratory facilities of all mineral organisations such as GSP, PMDC and other mineral related organisations can be pooled for preparing mineral investment study reports.

Unfortunately, we have always lost the competitive edge of geography and regionalgeo-tectonic setting due to lack of vision and sense of direction. We should grab the opportunity before it is too late.

MIRZA TALIB HASSANKarachiFormer Director GeneralGeological Survey of Pakistan Karachi