Pakistan

Record number of emigrants registered for overseas employment in 2022

Published

1 year ago

Farwa

Number is reported to be highest since last five years.
Declining trend observed in years 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-19.
Pakistan signed 12 manpower export MoUs with different nations.

ISLAMABAD: As many as 829,549 emigrants were registered for overseas employment through the Bureau of Immigration and Overseas Employment (BE&OE) in 2022 — the highest in the last five years.

The statistics regarding emigrants were shared by the Parliamentary Secretary for Overseas Pakistani and Human Resource Development Syed Agha Rafiullah at the National Assembly on Wednesday.

Responding to questions, Rafiullah said that 12.45 million Pakistani workers, since 1971, had been registered with the bureau for employment abroad till 2022.

However, a declining trend was observed in the years 2020 and 2021, as only 224,705 and 286,648 emigrants were registered by BE&OE respectively due to COVID-19 restrictions, he said.

He said that the ministry has taken several measures to explore and tap into the international job markets for intending emigrants.

A diversification strategy was adopted to shift focus to new labour markets and the declaration of intent on migration and mobility has already been signed with Greece and the UK and soon would be signed with Germany.

Rafiullah said 12 memoranda of understanding (MoUs) on manpower export with different countries including Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Iran, Italy, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Portugal, Romania and Uzbekistan were under bilateral discussion.

The overseas minister visited Romania and Portugal to explore new regular labour migration avenues, he said.

He added that the government had appointed 24 community welfare attachés in 16 different countries to explore new avenues for Pakistani manpower through Labour Market Analysis (LMA) of the host country so that skilled Pakistani intending emigrants could be imparted required training as per labour market requirements of the host country.

He said approximately nine million Pakistanis were working/residing in different countries around the world and contributing towards the socio-economic development of the country.

However, the parliamentary secretary said that there was no dedicated mechanism for providing solutions to the protection of their properties. In order to address the issue, the ministry/Overseas Pakistanis Foundation (OPF) undertook the initiative of proposing a bill that would address their grievances and provide protection to overseas Pakistanis with regard to their properties.

To another question, he said all the regular employees of OPF schools and colleges were getting minimum remuneration as prescribed by the government. Furthermore, contract employees were being paid a salary as per the terms and conditions of contractual employment rules/polices and as per advertisements published in newspapers at the time of hiring, he said.

However, he said, the remuneration of some contract employees was still less than the minimum wages as declared by the Federal government. Furthermore, up to a 10% annual increment was also granted to the contractual employees upon renewal of their annual contracts, he said.

Business

Pakistan has $13.316 billion in total foreign reserves.

Published

4 mins ago

Farwa

The central bank’s foreign reserves rose by $25 million to $8,006 million during the week under review, according to a statement released by the SBP here on Thursday.

It also stated that commercial banks reported holding $5,310 million in net foreign reserves. As of the previous week, which ended on April 19, 2024, the nation had $13,280.5 million in total liquid foreign reserves.

Among them, the central bank had foreign reserves of $7,981.2 million, while commercial banks had net foreign reserves of $5,299.3 million.

According to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), Pakistan got the much expected $1.1 billion last payment from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as part of the $3 billion standby agreement on Tuesday.

The Special Drawing Rights (SDR) 828 million, or $1.1 billion in worth, were given to the SBP “after the successful completion of the second review by the Executive Board of IMF under Stand By Arrangement (SBA),” according to the SBP.

According to the central bank, the payment will show up in SBP reserves for the week that ends on May 3, 2024.

Latest News

SC schedules SIC’s requested seats for hearing

Published

10 mins ago

Farwa

For the SIC reserved seat case hearing, the top court assembled a three-member bench, according to the details.

Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar and Justice Athar Minallah round out the three-person bench led by Justice Mansoor Ali Shah.

The ruling of the Peshawar High Court (PHC) on reserved seats in the upper court was earlier declared to be challenged by Barrister Gohar, the chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).

Barrister Gohar stated that in regards to the reserved seats issue, they will ask the supreme court to assemble a larger bench.

The Sunni Ittehad Council’s (SIC) petitions regarding reserved seats in legislatures were denied by the Peshawar High Court (PHC), which is noteworthy to highlight here.

Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim read the reserved verdict as the five-member high court panel made a unanimous decision regarding the petition.

Barrister Ali Zafar apologized for missing the hearing when he came to the rostrum.

According to him, the candidates must run as independents because the PTI’s election emblem, “bat,” was taken before the poll.

Regarding the inquiry concerning the quantity of seats in the national assembly and regional assemblies. According to the SIC lawyer, the party is represented by 86 members in the National Assembly, 90 in the Punjab, 107 in Sindh, and 1 in the Balochistan Assembly. “The SIC has 226 seats in assemblies overall, and it is eligible for 78 reserved seats,” he continued.

“We were kept apart by the election commission, and the remaining political parties were given reserved seats,” the attorney claimed. Since it was an empty piece of land, some political parties asked the ECP to give us these seats.

Pakistan

According to the CTD report, KP saw 179 terror acts in 2024.

Published

15 mins ago

Farwa

The study claims that 179 terrorist attacks took place in the province this year, with 91 terrorists losing their lives as a result.

According to the report, there were 60 instances in January, 38 in February, 33 in March, and 48 in April. With 31 terrorists slain, February saw the highest number of terrorist deaths.

In addition, 14 terrorists were slain in North Waziristan and 19 in Dera Ismail Khan.
The investigation also shows that Mohsin Qadir, Azmatullah, and Fareedullah were among the 16 most wanted terrorists that were slain.

In addition, 2 suicide vests, 36 hand grenades, and 247 kg of explosives were found, according to the CTD investigation.

To add to the difficult security situation in the province, the study also showed that 10 attacks against police teams were documented this year.

Up to 563 terror attacks happened in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2023, and out of those instances, police were targeted 243 times, according to a report released by the Anti-Terrorism Department (CTD) last year.

The study indicates that Dera Ismail Khan reported the largest number of terrorist occurrences at 132, followed by Khyber with 103 and Peshawar with 89 terror incidents.

The study additionally disclosed that terrorists targeted North Waziristan 86 times and South Waziristan 50 times. Eighty-seven terrorists were detained, according to the report.