Qatar has become one of the preferred destinations for Pakistani migrant workers due to the Qatari government’s labour reforms, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister of Pakistan on Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resources Development, Jawad Sohrab Malik, has said.
Malik arrived in Doha on a four-day official visit at the invitation of Qatar’s Minister of Labour HE Dr Ali Bin Samikh Al Marri.
Speaking to media persons, Malik said, "Manpower export is a large contributor of remittances that we receive in Pakistan. We have been working hard to explore avenues to enhance the manpower export.”
He said he had a very fruitful meeting with Qatar’s Minister of Labour HE Dr Ali Bin Samikh Al Marri. "We discussed the possibilities of increasing our manpower here in Qatar. We discussed ways where we can further encourage legal migration, and migration policy development. In addition to that we emphasised on the fact Qatar should further explore setting up testing centres in Pakistan. When they establish testing centres in Pakistan, they will have more confidence and trust on the resources,” remarked Malik.
The focus of the meeting, he said, was to avail the opportunities that Qatar has for the Pakistani workforce in Qatar.
He noted that there are lot of opportunities that labour exporting countries like Pakistan, could avail themselves of. "We are actually on a tour to identify those opportunities, raise the demand, and then go back to Pakistan and skill those individuals and export manpower to that relevant country,” said Malik.
Speaking about the agenda of his visit, Malik said, "Today’s agenda was the facilitation that we can obtain from the government of Qatar. We informed the minister that we are in the process of signing agreements and LOI’s with employers in Qatar because eventually the doors of opportunities for Pakistanis will open up once we start signing these agreements with private employers in Qatar. The more agreements we sign the more doors of opportunities we open up for Pakistanis in Qatar. One employer, for example, would have capacity of minimum 10 individuals while the other would have capacity for 2,000 Pakistanis.
"We need to understand that when we come here, the government of Qatar would not ask us to send 200,000 Pakistanis because it’s not going to work like that. We need to raise a demand and skill our individuals according to the requirement.”
He said that currently around 300,000 Pakistanis are living in Qatar which is 10 percent of Qatar’s total population. "Already it’s a quite a high figure and Insha Allah if we are able to work on developing skills, raising demand and open up avenues of job generation with private employers, the numbers will further increase,” remarked Malik.
He informed that that Pakistan has signed two LOI’s on human resource export to Qatar with two private companies during his visit. "Pakistanis are engaged in all vocations and comprise highly qualified professionals as well as unskilled labour. Around 58,000 Pakistanis came to Qatar in 2023,” he said.
"Pakistan is exploring job opportunities for its workers in construction, hospitality, healthcare and energy sectors. Currently, around 10 million Pakistanis are working abroad and 3 million are working in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia alone while 3 million Pakistanis are placed in different Gulf countries,” he said.
On an average, overseas Pakistanis send $27 billion annually in the shape of foreign remittances to their motherland. From Qatar, Pakistanis remit approximately $1 billion annually.
There is another LOI in the pipeline, he said, in relation to labour mobility, which would be signed within a few weeks after due diligence by the Qatari authorities.
Earlier, speaking to a community gathering, Malik said that on an average around 800,000 Pakistanis find job opportunities around the globe. "It is not a brain drain because it’s just 0.3 percent of our total population and it’s a good sign for our country because we get more remittances. We want to explore more opportunities to export our work force,” he noted.
He informed that the Pakistani government has set up six more protectorate offices in addition to existing nine offices in difference cities.
He said the government has established "Support Desks for Overseas Pakistanis” within the premises of the Islamabad Capital Territory Administration (ICT) offices and One Window at Capital Development Authority (CDA) in Islamabad. This strategic initiative is intricately aligned with the vision of the prime minister of Pakistan, for special emphasis on the provision of comprehensive assistance and facilitation such as property related issues to the Pakistani diaspora.
Earlier, Pakistan Ambassador HE Muhemed Aejaz praised the role of Pakistani community in the development of Qatar and noted that Qatari authorities hold Pakistani workforce in great esteem due to their hard work and dedication.
Community Welfare Attachés Arslan Khan Tanoli and Waheed Ullah Khan also spoke on the occasion.