Pakistan, Sept. 28 -- Since the Pakistan Minerals Summit of August 2023, and the first Minerals Investment Forum in April 2025, nearly every discussion on the country's mineral sector has returned to Reko Diq - and rightly so. It is among the world's largest undeveloped copper and gold deposits, and after years of litigation and renegotiation, it has shown that Pakistan can build a structure that serious international miners and lenders will back. But a sector cannot rest on a single project. As the second forum approaches in November, the government should ask a plain question: when a foreign mining company arrives in Islamabad and asks what else is available, what is placed before it?

The candid answer is that very little is offered in...