Foreign Investors Eye Pakistan's Agricultural Land
Pakistan is seriously pushing ahead with a plan to sell or lease over 700,000 acres of agricultural land to foreign investors in the face of growing opposition at home. A Saudi delegation is due in the country this month for further talks on a plan to lease an area of land more than twice the size of Hong Kong, a Pakistani official told Reuters this month. Similar reports have surfaced earlier, indicating UAE investors have been quietly buying Pakistani farm land . In June, news agency Reuters reported that the government of Pakistan had offered 404,700 hectares (ha) of farmland for sale or lease to foreign investors. It is the usual suspects of the Gulf states and South Korea who are the likely targets of the government's drive for investment. Oil rich, food poor states from the Middle East and food deficit prone South Korea have been spurred by the high food prices of 2007 and 2008 to increase their food security by investing in agricultural land abroad. Also in June 2009, Sw...