Qatar is set to welcome 200,000 workers from Pakistan in the next four years as it constructs the infrastructure to support the 2022 FIFA World Cup, it has been reported.
Local daily Pakistan Today quoted Pakistan's Provincial Minister Labour and Human Resource Raja Ashfaq Sarwar as saying that two committees have been constituted to identify the professional skills demanded by Qatar and also Dubai. "These committees will provide identity cards, passports, visas, security clearance and vaccinations to the skilled and semi-skilled workers who will be going abroad," Sarwar said.
"A special cell has also been established in the office of the labor secretary for the provision of 200,000 skilled workforce from Pakistan."
The first batch of skilled workers will leave Pakistan by the end of July 2015.
Sarwar, who visited Qatar in May, said that he assured the Qatari government that Pakistan will provide a blue collar workforce with "good standards of vocational training, security verifications, vaccination, awareness on industrial safety, and basic English language" and adding that Pakistan will also eliminate fake and visa exploiter companies and non-accredited labor export agents.
He was quoted as saying: "[The] government, in collaboration with the private sector will train these skilled and semi-skilled workers, who will bring foreign exchange of more than $589.4 million annually to Pakistan."
All the arrangements have been made for training the workers at the vocational training institutes of the government situated in Gujranwala, Sheikhupura and Lahore, Pakistan Today's report added.
