ISLAMABAD – The Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human ResourceDevelopment has facilitated some 90,000 Pakistanis, to secure jobs inmultiple fields of international labour market during the first 40 days of2020.
“This is a good start for ‘2020’ and it seems that we will accomplish thetarget of 750,000 set for the current year,” a senior officer in the Bureauof Emigration and Overseas Employment (BEOE) told APP.
The foreign remittances, sent by Pakistani expatriates, were a potentialsource of boosting the country’s forex reserve (FER), he added.
The officer said over 63 per cent growth in manpower export was observedduring the last year as 625, 203 Pakistanis went abroad for overseasemployment in multiple trades compared to 382,439 in 2018.
Citing the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) as the source, he said the foreignremittances had reached to $11.4 billion during the first half of 2019-20.
He hoped that the government might achieve $24 billion target of foreignremittances set for the current financial year.
The officer said the government had chalked out a comprehensive plan toboost flow offoreign remittances in the country by providing incentives to the Pakistaniexpatriates forusing legal channels to send money to their homes.
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The idea was worked out by a committee on remittances chaired by theAdviser to thePrime Minister on Finance & Revenue Hafeez Sheikh, he added.
He said the initiative would be launched shortly as the overseas ministryhad suggestedduring the recent meeting that the plan should be implemented before theholy month ofRamazan due to high flow of remittances from Pakistani expatriates on theEid-ul-Fitr.
Under the initiative, the officer said a card would be issued for theemigrants to givethem multiple incentives like concession in air tickets and permission forbringing someextra quantity of luggage against the approved weight and two mobile phones.
The card holders’ families might be offered some packages on purchasingedible itemsfrom the utility stores, he added.
He said an expatriate would get the incentives against some points thathe/she earnedon swiping the card for the transfer of remittances.
