Pakistan beats India, Bangladesh in manpower export during 2020: ministry

ISLAMABAD: Beating other regional players like Bangladesh and India, Pakistan emerged as the ‘Manpower Export Leader’ in the region as around 224,705 workers proceeded to various countries for various job assignments in 2020, despite the coronavirus pandemic.

Bangladesh sent 217,699 workers and India 94,145 for employment purpose during the same period, said the Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and HR Development while making the comparison in a tweet.

"Pakistan becomes a ‘Manpower Export Leader’ in the region despite the pandemic, leaving behind India and Bangladesh in the export of manpower in 2020," it added.

According to the Economic Survey of Pakistan, launched by the government last week, so far over 11.43 million Pakistanis have proceeded abroad for employment to more than 50 countries.

It said the migration of Pakistani workers was mostly concentrated to Gulf Cooperation Council countries (96 per cent) with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates hosting the majority.

However, due to Covid-19 , a declining trend was observed in terms of emigrants registered in 2020, including GCC countries, it mentioned, adding that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) was the main destination for Pakistan's workforce where more than 60% of emigrants proceeded followed by UAE (24%) and Oman (4.6%).

Out of the total, the ministry said 136,339 people went to the KSA, 53,676 to the UAE, 10,336 to Oman and many to the other countries during 2020.

The survey said the ministry was striving to boost export of Pakistani manpower by exploring new job markets.

“A comprehensive diversification strategy has been developed for top five priority countries including Saudi Arabia, UAE, Malaysia, Qatar and Oman along with other five potential countries such as Kuwait, South Korea, Japan, Germany and China to promote the export of manpower to these countries,” it added.