Maryam tells minerals forum of placer gold in Punjab rivers

Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif said on Thursday there was significant evidence of placer gold in all five rivers of the province, singling out Mianwali and Attock, and invited foreign investors to help develop the deposits.

Speaking at the Pakistan Minerals Investment Forum 2026 in Islamabad, she held up what she described as a sample of pure gold recovered from river sand and said surveys to measure the deposits were still running.

"We have significant evidence that there is sufficient quantity of placer gold," she said, according to Business Recorder. "It is pure gold, literally flowing in all five rivers, especially Mianwali and Attock, north and south of Punjab."

"We are also looking for international partners and can turn this opportunity into shared prosperity," she said. She added that the sand and gravel carrying the gold contain rare earth and precious minerals that could be worth as much as the metal itself.

Neither report of her speech gave an estimate of how much gold the rivers hold, and no independent geological assessment was cited.

She tied the claim to a push to formalise Punjab's mining sector, saying revenue of the provincial Mines and Minerals Department had risen from Rs10 billion when she took office to Rs40 billion in two and a half years. "This is just the beginning," she said, according to Minute Mirror.

Minute Mirror reported that the chief ministers of Balochistan and Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Faisal Karim Kundi also attended the forum.

Sharif said her government was removing the procedures investors face, introducing a one-window system so approvals no longer require visits to several departments. Minute Mirror reported that the province was offering concessional financing of up to Rs5 billion for mining investment, and that solar-powered energy would be provided to investors to offset high electricity and fuel costs.

"Pakistan is a pot of gold," she said. "All we need to do is to unearth it, to explore it and to turn it into tangible wealth."

The two-day forum is organised by the federal government with the Special Investment Facilitation Council to draw foreign money into the minerals sector. Business Recorder reported that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and Chief of the Army Staff Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir are among the speakers.