Daily Times

The Pakistan and Canada have reaffirmed their commitment to remain constructively engaged to further reinforce bilateral relations, as there were a number of sectors that had a huge potential for cooperation, especially the export of skillful manpower to improve the national economy.

These views were discussed in a tripartite meeting of the All Pakistan Business Forum (APBF), Punjab Board of Investment & Trade (PBIT) and Member Parliament of the House of Commons of Canada Ms. Salma Zahid, held here today, to discuss various trade opportunities between Pakistan and Canada with major focus on export of skilled labour force from Pakistan.

Salma Zahid, who is also the Member Standing Committee of Immigration and Citizenship of Canada, has recently been awarded with the Pakistan civil award of ‘Sitara-e-Quaid-e-Azam’ for her remarkable services to enhance bilateral relations between the two countries.

The Member Parliament of the Canadian House of Commons emphasized Pakistan’s deep appreciation for its relationship with Canada and its commitment to fostering enduring and multifaceted bilateral relations. She stressed the importance of increasing trade between the two nations and called for closer collaboration among business communities. Promoting bilateral cooperation across public, commercial, and parliamentary spheres was highlighted as pivotal to strengthening the Pakistan-Canada partnership.

Ms. Salma Zahid expressed gratitude to APBF and PBIT for inviting her and said that Canada and Pakistan have all the resources for business collaboration and export of skilled workforce. She pledged to return with different new ideas of JVs, collaborations and export of demand base skilled workforce to boost the bilateral trade ties.

APBF President Maaz Mahmood added that business community of both the countries should collaborate with each other to force joint ventures in view of increasing bilateral trade and exploring new business opportunities. “We can start it through segment wise and APBF have all the resources to initiate it because we contain diverse kinds of members from different business sectors.”

He said that Pakistan is the 5th largest country of the world in terms of population with a large pool of human resource, pledging to equip its manpower with the latest skills and knowledge to improve their prospects of their export to potential markets.

Maaz Mahmood called for harnessing the potential of a substantial Pakistani workforce to realize the goal of fast economic revival. He proposed the Canadian government to employ a substantial number of Pakistani workers, as it has the ability to export one million workers every year to various potential markets and all possible efforts should be made to realize this goal to strengthen the economy.

The PBIT CEO Jalal Hassan, on this occasion, pointed out various trade opportunities which exist between Pakistan and Canada, asking the APBF to take lead from private sector, as it has huge membership from diverse sectors. He also asked the private sector and the government of Canada to engage with Pakistan to find the ways to increase the export of skilled workforce to Canada.

Calling for easing visa process for Pakistani students and business community, he said that Pakistan markets are competitive and, we have great potential for collaboration in all sectors especially textile, auto parts, skilled labor and manpower export etc. He said that the government has making strong efforts to explore new markets for increasing the export of manpower across the globe that would help improve the foreign exchange and the overall economy.

APBF Chairman Ibrahim Qureshi, expressed his best wishes, commenting that there is a huge opportunity between Canada and Pakistan which can be materialized through regular interaction and collaboration from both sides. He said that many countries, including Canada, are in high demand of skilled labor and the government would provide the demand-driven skills to its workforce that would increase their export and strengthen the economy. APBF President, in the end, appreciated APBF Chairman Ibrahim Qureshi and CPBC President Samir Dossal for their great work to keep both the countries engaged in all kinds of cooperation. The meeting was also attended by APBF board member Amir Munir and senior officials of PBIT.