By Omer Bilal ISLAMABAD, Feb. 03 (INP-WealthPK): Of the total 79.6 million hectares of geographical area, Pakistan has 9.1 million hectares of culturable wasteland that is fit for cultivation but is not cropped due to a lack of water availability and financial resource constraints. About half of this culturable waste area is in the province of Balochistan, mainly in the Kalat division followed by Quetta, Nasirabad, and Makran divisions. There are also vast tracts of culturable wasteland in Cholistan, Bahawalpur, and Rahimyar Khan districts of the Punjab province. Pakistan is seeking Chinese support for promoting corporate farming through public-private partnership, or through foreign corporate entities. Corporate farming is meant to cultivate all the wasteland by attracting foreign investment, or through the public-private partnership. This mode of investment entails employing technologies and paying local labour with attractive wages, training local people in farming techniques, paying local taxes, developing roads and communication networks and bringing prosperity to the host country. In this regard, the Board of Investment (BOI) is mandated to promote, encourage and facilitate both local and foreign investments to boost the corporate farming. The BOI acts as an interface between international and local investors as well as the public and private sectors. The BOI in collaboration with the Balochistan’s agriculture department is exploring multiple locations of culturable wasteland in the province for corporate farming. In this regard, the BOI has launched a project to bring an investment of Rs100 million on finance-build-operate-and-own basis. The project, which will be completed in one and a half year, also aims to introduce modern technologies in deep-sea fishing and processing; farming, processing and packaging of milk, processing and packaging of meat and animal feed production. It is to mention here that the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has so far given registration to over 25 companies in corporate agricultural farming, mostly in seed, poultry and feed business, dairy farming, and halal meat production. To promote corporate farming, the government has also introduced amendments to the Land Reforms Act, 1977. The Act’s Article 2 says that corporate farming is a term that is used to describe an agricultural operation that involves the production of food and food-related products on an exceptionally large scale. With the legislation of new laws, the government has declared the corporate farming as an industry, allowing purely 100% foreign equity. In accordance with the policy, the foreign investors will have lucrative profits on their investments. They will also have the freedom to invest in securities. The foreign investors will also have credit and other lending facilities. Under the amendments to the Land Reforms Act, state land can be purchased or leased for 50 years, which may be extendable for another 49 years. Customs duty on import of plants, machinery and other inputs has been reduced to 5%. The new amendments lift the restriction on an investment company to pay royalty to the landowners. Now, it will depend upon the company’s choice whether it pays the royalty or not. The foreign investors will have their investments insured to give them cushions in case of losses. Agriculture, which is considered the mainstay of economic activities in Pakistan, employs 45% of the total labour force, including 36.6% male and 74.9% female.