KARACHI: Pakistan is striving to benefit from Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 program which is expected to create millions of employment opportunities in the kingdom by helping its workforce build its professional capacity, a top Pakistani official told Arab News on Tuesday.
The program is a strategic transformation initiative to reduce the kingdom’s dependence on oil by diversifying its economy and turning it into a global industrial hub.
The plan requires the Saudi authorities to invest $320 billion to develop its non-oil sector by undertaking a string of mega projects, such as developing technologically smart cities that help their inhabitants with further innovation in their respective fields.
“I have already directed my ministry to identify the economic sectors at the heart of the Saudi initiative along with the skillsets required to capture the greatest number of emerging employment opportunities,” Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Overseas Pakistanis Sayed Zulfikar Abbas Bukhari said while talking to Arab News.
“The ministry has also been directed to coordinate along with Pakistan’s National Vocational and Technical Training Commission with relevant Saudi organizations for accreditation and mutual skill recognition to effectively utilize the future demand,” he added.
Bukhari said his ministry was working with relevant Saudi authorities to develop a standardized labor contract for Pakistani nationals.
Home to over two million Pakistani migrants, Saudi Arabia is already the single largest source of remittances to the South Asian state.
During July-March 2021 period, the Pakistani diaspora in the kingdom sent $5.7 billion to their homeland. Such inflows of remittances continue to support Pakistan’s balance of payment position and keep its foreign reserves stable.
In an interview with Pakistan’s state-owned news channel on Sunday, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud applauded the role of Pakistani expatriates in the development and progress of his country.
“We have a very ambitious plan, Vision 2030,” he said. “Under that plan, we expect to grow significantly the employment base in the kingdom. That means of course that there will be significant opportunities for additional employment for Pakistani nationals.”
The Saudi foreign minister also invited Pakistani business community to benefit from the emerging investment opportunities in the kingdom.
“We also hope that Pakistani businesses will continue to increase their investment in the kingdom because there are some very successful entrepreneurs who I think will find excellent and exciting opportunities,” he added.
The Saudi prince also mentioned new labor reforms, hoping that they would help foreign workers find flexible job opportunities.
“We have recently undergone significant labor reforms which have improved to a great extent the flexibility of third country labor within the Saudi labor market. They are now free to transfer their work from one employer to other,” he said.
Pakistani experts say their country needs to train its human resource to suit the market requirements of other countries.
“Apart from the construction sector, foreign countries are now demanding knowledge-based labor,” Haroon Sharif, member of the prime minister’s task force on economic diplomacy, told Arab News.
“It is imperative for us to provide new and specialized training to our workforce in view of the changing demand in international markets and our universities can play a pivotal role in that,” he continued. “We can also achieve the desired objective by involving the countries for which we are training our labor force.”
Pakistan to train workers for emerging job opportunities in Saudi Arabia
https://arab.news/5chtu
Pakistan to train workers for emerging job opportunities in Saudi Arabia
- PM Khan’s advisor on overseas Pakistanis says his ministry is working with relevant Saudi authorities to prepare a standardized labor contract for Pakistani nationals
- Pakistani workers in Saudi Arabia sent $5.7 billion to their country between July and March, making the kingdom the single largest source of remittances to the South Asian state
Imran Khan’s party shutdown draws mixed response; government calls it ‘ineffective’
- Ex-PM Khan’s PTI party had called for a ‘shutter-down strike’ to protest Feb. 8, 2024 general election results
- While businesses reportedly remained closed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, they continued as normal elsewhere
ISLAMABAD: A nationwide “shutter-down strike” called by former prime minister Imran Khan’s party drew a mixed response in Pakistan on Sunday, underscoring political polarization in the country two years after a controversial general election.
Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PIT) opposition party had urged the masses to shut businesses across the country to protest alleged rigging on the second anniversary of the Feb. 8, 2024 general election.
Local media reported a majority of businesses remained closed in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, governed by the PTI, while business continued as normal in other provinces as several trade associations distanced themselves from the strike call.
Arab News visited major markets in Islamabad’s G-6, G-9, I-8 and F-6 sectors, as well as commercial hubs in Rawalpindi, which largely remained operational on Sunday, a public holiday when shops, restaurants and malls typically remain open in Pakistan.
“Pakistan’s constitution says people will elect their representatives. But on 8th February 2024, people were barred from exercising their voting right freely,” Allama Raja Nasir Abbas Jafri, the PTI opposition leader in the Senate, said at a protest march near Islamabad’s iconic Faisal Mosque.
Millions of Pakistanis voted for national and provincial candidates during the Feb. 8, 2024 election, which was marred by a nationwide shutdown of cellphone networks and delayed results, leading to widespread allegations of election manipulation by the PTI and other opposition parties. The caretaker government at the time and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) both rejected the allegations.
Khan’s PTI candidates contested the Feb. 8 elections as independents after the party was barred from the polls. They won the most seats but fell short of the majority needed to form a government, which was made by a smattering of rival political parties led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. The government insists the polling was conducted transparently and that Khan’s party was not denied a fair chance.
Authorities in the Pakistani capital deployed a heavy police contingent on the main road leading to the Faisal Mosque on Sunday. Despite police presence and the reported arrest of some PTI workers, Jafri led local PTI members and dozens of supporters who chanted slogans against the government at the march.
“We promise we will never forget 8th February,” Jafri said.
The PTI said its strike call was “successful” and shared videos on official social media accounts showing closed shops and markets in various parts of the country.
The government, however, dismissed the protest as “ineffective.”
“The public is fed up with protest politics and has strongly rejected PTI’s call,” Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said on X.
“It’s Sunday, yet there is still hustle and bustle.”
Ajmal Baloch, All Pakistan Traders Association president, said they neither support such protest calls, nor prevent individuals from closing shops based on personal political affiliation.
“It’s a call from a political party and we do not close businesses on calls of any political party,” Baloch told Arab News.
“We only give calls of strike on issues related to traders.”
Khan was ousted from power in April 2022 after what is widely believed to be a falling out with the country’s powerful generals. The army denies it interferes in politics. Khan has been in prison since August 2023 and faces a slew of legal challenges that ruled him out of the Feb. 8 general elections and which he says are politically motivated to keep him and his party away from power.
In Jan. 2025, an accountability court convicted Khan and his wife in the £190 million Al-Qadir Trust land corruption case, sentencing him to 14 years and her to seven years after finding that the trust was used to acquire land and funds in exchange for alleged favors. The couple denies any wrongdoing.
