Pakistan, July 29 -- Pakistan sits on some of the richest, least-developed mineral ground in Asia. Balochistan alone is estimated to hold copper and gold reserves worth hundreds of billions of dollars at Reko Diq, H-4 Tanjeel, Boya-Dagan and Saindak; Thar hosts one of the world's largest lignite coal deposits; the northern belt carries chromite, marble, and rare-earth-bearing rock that could feed everything from steel mills to electric-vehicle battery supply chains. On paper, this should be one of the most attractive frontier mining jurisdictions on earth.

Yet foreign capital has stayed away for decades, and continues to stay away now, despite the government's most serious institutional push to change that story: the Special Investment F...