Karachi is about to get something Pakistan has never had before: a dedicated Marble City. The Sindh government has announced the country’s first industrial park built entirely around marble and granite — a $250 million project spread over more than 300 acres along the Northern Bypass, designed to turn Pakistan’s raw stone into finished products for export instead of shipping the raw material abroad.
The announcement was made by Sindh Minister for Information, Transport and Mass Transit Sharjeel Inam Memon at the pre-launch ceremony of the Karachi Marble City Industrial Park. The formal inauguration of the project will be performed by Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah.
What is Karachi Marble City?
The project covers an area of more than 300 acres along the Northern Bypass in Karachi, according to Qasim Naveed Qamar, Special Assistant to the Chief Minister on Investment and Public-Private Partnership. It is being developed under a public-private partnership framework, with an estimated cost of $250 million.
The idea is simple but ambitious: give investors modern industrial plots, cheap power and advanced machinery in one place, and let them process the marble and granite found in Sindh and other parts of the country into high-quality finished products for international markets. The park will offer investors opportunities to set up industries equipped with modern facilities, Memon said at the ceremony.
Registration of investors and industrialists is being initiated, with registration scheduled to begin next month. Further facilities will be extended to investors following registration.
From raw stone to finished exports
Pakistan sits on vast reserves of marble and granite — yet, as Memon acknowledged, these resources have not been utilised to their full potential. For years, much of the country’s stone has been exported in raw form, with the real value added abroad.
Marble City is designed to flip that model. Instead of exporting raw blocks, the park will promote the local processing of natural resources and the production of finished goods, Memon said — a shift that would also benefit the national economy by keeping more of the value chain inside Pakistan.
The project would enable the processing of marble and granite reserves found in different parts of Sindh and other areas of the country through modern industrial techniques to produce high-quality products for export to international markets.
What it will cost to set up there
Land inside Marble City will be priced at an average of approximately Rs25 million per acre, Memon announced. Crucially for smaller investors, the full amount will not have to be paid in a single instalment — those unable to make a one-time payment will be offered the facility to pay in instalments.
That pricing puts a standard industrial plot within reach of mid-sized manufacturers, not just large groups, and the instalment option is clearly aimed at widening the pool of investors beyond Karachi’s established industrial families.
Cheap power and rented machinery
Energy costs are usually the biggest worry for any new industrial project in Pakistan — and the Sindh government is promising to tackle that head-on. Qamar said the government was working on a proposal to provide electricity at Rs20 per unit for its projects, particularly in Dhabeji and Khairpur, and that arrangements were being made to offer electricity in Marble City at rates lower than those charged by K-Electric.
Efforts are also underway to provide industrialists in Marble City with facilities at the lowest possible cost, make machinery available on rent, and provide access to the world’s most advanced equipment, Qamar added. For small and medium manufacturers who cannot afford to buy expensive cutting and polishing machinery outright, the rental option could be the difference between setting up and staying out.
Who will inaugurate it — and why Karachi
The formal inauguration of the project will be performed by PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, giving the project top-level political backing from the party that governs the province.
Memon also claimed that several industrialists who had established businesses in other cities of the country were now interested in shifting their operations to Karachi and making fresh investments in the city — a sign, he suggested, that confidence in Karachi as an industrial base is returning.
He added that the Sindh government would welcome other provinces, including Punjab, adopting successful projects initiated by Sindh, and would happily adopt effective projects from Punjab in return. “We are all part of the same country and should encourage each other’s positive initiatives,” he said.
What it means for Pakistan’s economy
If Marble City delivers on its promises, the payoff could be significant. Pakistan’s marble and granite sector has long been an underperformer relative to its reserves: raw stone leaves the country cheaply, and finished marble — cut, polished and shaped — is imported back at a premium. Local processing reverses that flow, creating jobs in cutting, polishing, finishing and logistics, and earning more foreign exchange per tonne of stone.
The project also fits a wider pattern in Sindh’s industrial policy: dedicated zones with subsidised power and shared facilities, from Dhabeji to Khairpur, aimed at manufacturers who have been squeezed by high energy costs. Whether Marble City can keep its power promise — electricity below K-Electric rates — will be the real test of the project, and investors will be watching the registration process that begins next month for the fine print on land allotment, power tariffs and machinery rental terms.
For now, the message from the pre-launch ceremony is clear: Pakistan’s stone industry is being invited to stop exporting raw rock and start selling finished marble to the world — and Karachi is where that change is supposed to begin.
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