FAISALABAD: Engineer Ahmad Hassan, former Vice President and Convener FCCI (Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry) Standing Committee on R&D, has proposed a separate and dedicated ministry to produce highly skilled human resources which could be exported to other countries to almost double the existing foreign remittances.
Addressing a meeting of the standing committee, he said that our current exports are only $20bn while remittances are $30bn but still there is a gap of $20-25bn.
He said, “We must focus on exporting highly skilled manpower to overcome this trade gap. The economy is facing multiple challenges and fundamental administrative changes are needed to resolve the issues. We are exporting unskilled and semiskilled workers which are sending $30bn remittances. The proposed ministry may be tasked with identifying the specific needs of each potential country and produce human resources in that particular area.”
He further said that exports are dwindling due to global meltdown and internal instability, hence we must focus on enhancing foreign remittances by exporting a major chunk of our highly trained manpower. “It is the easiest way to balance the trade deficit”, he added.
Earlier Dr H.M Arif Javaid presented a comprehensive documentary on remittances and said that foreign remittances of $647bn were transferred globally during 2022 and this amount is expected to jump to $800bn in 2024.
He explained data about South Asian countries and said that maximum remittances poured in India which was $111.2bn. “Pakistan received $29.9bn remittances which were only 7.9% of our GDP”, he said and explained the importance of foreign remittances, global and regional trends, South Asian landscape, Pakistani diaspora, remittances sent by them, evolution of remittances and other related topics.
Muhammad Amjad Khawaja proposed that comparative study of the Pakistan and Bangladesh textile sector may be presented in the next meeting of the standing committee.
The meeting was also attended by Abdullah Qadri, Muhib Mujtaba Amjad, Muhammad Irfan and Muhammad Faizan.
