PESHAWAR: Pakistan’s religious affairs ministry on Saturday initiated mandatory training sessions for pilgrims performing this year’s Hajj under the government scheme by holding the inaugural session in the northwestern city of Peshawar.
Earlier this month, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed the annual Hajj agreement in Jeddah, which formally confirmed that the South Asian nation would send 179,210 people to perform the pilgrimage this year.
More than 200 pilgrims participated in the first session in Peshawar, held at a private educational institution in the city.
Muhammad Umair Butt, the ministry spokesperson, told Arab News that authorities have planned the mandatory Hajj training sessions at 147 locations across the country.
“According to the Saudi government’s instructions, we have to provide training to Hajj pilgrims to acquaint them with the administrative affairs and other Hajj rituals so they can complete their worship properly,” he said, adding the sessions were also designed to sensitize pilgrims on how to spend their time in Saudi Arabia.

Butt said the training sessions would cover all required topics in two sittings.
“These sessions will be concluded before [the Muslim fasting month of] Ramadan,” he said. “The sessions will be held from January 18 to February 27 across the country in every province.”
The religious affairs ministry has taken several initiatives this year to facilitate pilgrims, including the launch of the Pak Hajj 2025 mobile application to guide them.
The app is available for both Android and iPhone users.

The ministry spokesperson said each sitting of the training session will last for about three hours, during which pilgrims will receive guidelines through audiovisual material.
Speaking to Arab News, participants of the training session expressed satisfaction with the information shared, saying multiple questions they had about the Hajj rituals had been answered.
“It is good that I attended the first session in which they provided detailed information about the app,” Mujib-ur-Rehman Bhatti, a resident of Peshawar’s Gulbahar neighborhood, said after participating in the training.

He added the ministry had informed all the pilgrims in detail about how to overcome common problems reported during Hajj.
“The things they taught us were for our own ease and can save us from tension ahead,” Bhatti said.
Another participant of the session, Ali Khan, an official at the Civil Aviation who is planning to perform Hajj with his family, called it a “brilliant program.”
“Everything was explained quite well and in significant detail,” he said. “We gathered information from videos, YouTube and other sources. The session was very practical and important.”

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Saturday reaffirmed his commitment to cultivating a thriving digital investment ecosystem as Pakistan became the first country to implement a global initiative to drive digital foreign direct investment.
The Digital Foreign Direct Investment Initiative, a collaboration of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the Digital Cooperation Organization (DCO), was launched in 2022 to enhance cross-border digital investment, particularly in emerging markets.
Pakistan was the first country to volunteer to implement the initiative, marking the beginning of the Digital FDI-Enabling Project (DEP) in 2022. The project is structured around four pillars: digital infrastructure, digital adoption, new digital activities and digital services exports.
In its report issued on Friday, the WEF outlined targeted actions taken by the DEP team in critical areas for growth, carefully tailored to Pakistan’s socioeconomic conditions, regulatory framework and evolving digital landscape.
“From expanding revenues to increasing workforce and global exports, Pakistan is scaling new heights in its stride for digital transformation,” PM Sharif said on X, adding that he was “proud” to witness Pakistan as the first country to implement the initiative.
“We reaffirm our unwavering commitment to cultivating a thriving digital investment ecosystem, paving the way for #DigitalProsperity4All.”
In its report, the WEF noted that a consultative and data-gathering process identified 55 policy options as possible recommendations for addressing gaps in Pakistan’s digital ecosystem and attracting more digital FDI.
These insights were consolidated in a Findings Note that was reviewed by government partners and key industry stakeholders and presented to participants at a consultative workshop. The policy options were collectively prioritized to establish priority actions, according to the report.
Throughout the project, key stakeholders across each category were actively engaged through a series of consultations, follow-up meetings and a dedicated stakeholder workshop. This comprehensive engagement provided invaluable insights into Pakistan’s digital landscape and investment ecosystem to inform the project’s direction and outcomes.
“Pakistan is striving to boost digital foreign direct investment in the country by promoting a ‘digital-friendly’ investment climate,” the report read.
Last year, Pakistan’s State Minister for Information Technology (IT) Shaza Fatima Khawaja said the South Asian country planned to establish a National Digital Commission to ensure digitization of its economy and governance.
The commission will not only improve governance and tax collection efficiency, but it will also make the inter-ministerial coordination smooth, according to Khawaja.
Pakistan, faced with an economic meltdown in recent years, has made rigorous efforts to introduce structural reforms to revive its $350 billion economy.
Khawaja said paperless governance was “vital” to speed up the government operations and the commission would help remove procedural bottlenecks.
Pakistan is part of the 16-member DCO, the world’s first standalone international intergovernmental organization, which focuses on the acceleration of growth of an inclusive and sustainable digital economy.
Other members of the multilateral organization, founded in November 2020, include Bahrain, Bangladesh, Cyprus, Djibouti, Gambia, Ghana, the Hellenic Republic (Greece), Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Rwanda and Saudi Arabia, collectively representing nearly $3.5 trillion in GDP and a market of nearly 800 million people, more than 70 percent of whom are under the age of 35.