Sindh CM assures Chinese investors of security at Shanghai conference

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah assured Chinese investors on Thursday that the province would protect Chinese nationals and their projects, saying a dedicated security unit had been set up within the Sindh police and was being strengthened further.

Addressing the Sindh Investment and Trade Conference in Shanghai, he said the provincial government was committed to using all necessary resources for the safety of Chinese people and Chinese projects in Sindh. “It is our government’s pledge to make sure that all resources are used to ensure the safety of Chinese people and of Chinese projects in Sindh,” he said. He thanked the Chinese government for helping build the capacity of the provincial police.

More than two dozen MoUs

Shah announced that more than two dozen memorandums of agreement would be signed during the conference. They cover energy and minerals, electric vehicles and automobile manufacturing, digital transformation, food processing, and logistics, warehousing and trade.

Each agreement, he said, would be assigned a dedicated focal person in the Sindh Investment Department and reviewed at the highest level of the provincial government. “For us, signing is just the beginning of the work and not the end,” he told the audience.

The case for Sindh

The chief minister described Sindh as Pakistan’s gateway to the world. Karachi Port and Port Qasim handle most of the country’s seaborne trade, and Karachi is home to the State Bank of Pakistan and the Pakistan Stock Exchange, he said, connecting investors to markets in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia.

He pointed to the following advantages:

• Energy: Thar holds about 175 billion tonnes of lignite, one of the largest coal reserves in the world, and the province’s wind corridor has an estimated potential of around 50,000 megawatts.
• Incentives: special economic zones offer guaranteed incentives, including a 10-year income tax exemption and duty-free import of capital goods.
• Legal framework: Sindh was the first province in Pakistan to enact public-private partnership legislation.
• Facilitation: the Sindh Investment Department offers one-window facilitation from first enquiry to the start of production.
• Agriculture: the province produces rice, cotton, wheat, sugarcane, fruit and dates.

Shah said a regional assessment cited at the conference ranked Sindh sixth alongside sovereign countries as an investment destination.

Chinese companies already in Sindh

To make his case, the chief minister listed Chinese firms already working in the province:

• Shanghai Electric’s Thar Block-I project, with a 1,320-megawatt power plant, has been in commercial operation since 2023, supplying power made from local coal to millions of homes.
• China Machinery Engineering Corporation operates at Thar Block-II, and China Three Gorges Corporation runs a wind farm at Jhimpir.
• Service Long March Tyres, a Pakistan-China joint venture in Nooriabad, has begun exporting to the United States and Brazil.
• In automobiles, he cited BYD, Changan, JAC and Dongfeng. He said BYD sold more than 10,000 vehicles within months of its launch in Pakistan and is setting up a manufacturing facility that he described as almost complete.

He also named United Energy Group, Pakistan-China Electric, China National Nuclear Corporation and Hutchison Ports among companies operating in the province.

Where Sindh wants to go next

Looking ahead, Shah identified energy and minerals, including coal-to-chemicals and the wider Thar value chain, as the main areas for cooperation. He also named electric vehicles, automobile manufacturing, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, smart cities, food processing and logistics.

He invited Chinese business leaders to visit Sindh and see the opportunities for themselves, describing deeper economic ties as a natural extension of 75 years of friendship between the two countries. Quoting the Chinese philosopher Laozi, he said a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. “Shanghai showed the world what investment can achieve. Sindh invites you to build the next story with us,” he said.

Why it matters

Security for Chinese nationals has been a recurring concern for investors in Pakistan, so the assurance on policing is as important to the audience in Shanghai as the list of incentives. The conference comes as Pakistan and China deepen their ties on several fronts, including defence. Read our report on Pakistan and China’s army exercise and Pakistan’s security ties with Russia.

This article draws on reporting by The Express Tribune.