Recently, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been signed between AFCO-Private Limited, Pakistan (a Pakistani employment recruitment bureau and MMC-Health Care Limited, UK

LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 24th Feb, 2020 ):Recently, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been signed between AFCO-Private Limited, Pakistan (a Pakistani employment recruitment bureau and MMC-Health Care Limited, UK.

This agreement would help provide more than 15,0000 medical sector jobs to,approximately 80,000 to 10,0000 nurses, 25000 doctors, 10,000 pharmacists, 20,000 allied paramedics in the UK.

These jobs are available for Pakistani medical professionals in the post-Brexit scenario. Following the MoU, an Overseas Job Creation Portal was inaugurated at the Punjab Governor's House recently which would help ensure a proper mechanism by inviting Pakistani medical professionals to avail the opportunity. Governor Punjab, Chaudhry Muhammad Sarwar during the formal launch of this portal had said the recruitment of the doctors, nurses and paramedical staff would contribute to the sustainable socio-economic development of both the countries, which would help increase the volume of the foreign remittances. Punjab Governor assured to adopt General Practitioner (GP) system of the National Health Service (NHS) in UK and low-cost healthcare and subsidized medication to the remote area residents would be ensured.

Regarding the opportunity to avail the post brexit employment, the AFCO Private Limited chairman Anser Farooq in a statement had said that the recruitment of the required medical staff from Pakistan was one of the top twenty Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as determined by the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), a central platform of the United Nations to reflect, debate and create innovative thinking on sustainable development around the globe. According to a document of Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development, the highest recorded remittances in a month since May 2019, Overseas Pakistani workers remitted US $ 2.097 billion in December 2019 as compared to US $ 1.819 billion during November 2019. On month-to-month basis, the remittances increased by US $ 277.56 million in December, with a growth of 15.25 percent, the document said. According to the available data of ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development official data, by March 2019 more than 40,000 Pakistani doctors were working abroad, 18,000 Pakistani doctors are working in USA, while around 6,000 in the UK and other European countries. State Bank of Pakistan's quarterly report showed that Pakistani migrant workers in the US sent home US $ 2.004 billion in July-January during fiscal year 2019, compared with US $ 1.504 billion in the same period of the previous year.

While UK remained the second top-sending remittances to the country with a total of US $ 1.942, as compared with US $ 1.585 billion during 2018. Referring to the sustainable development in economy sector, Dr Ashfaq Hussain a leading economist suggested that a major increase in the desired goals could be achieved only by enhancing the foreign remittances and increasing pharmaceutical exports up to US $ five billion by achieving ECOSOC goals and removing all the obstacles in the way.

These goals mainly included elimination of poverty elimination, create job opportunities and increase economic growth, reduce inequality, enforce gender equality, advance life on land and to guarantee peace, justice and strong institution. According to State Bank of Pakistan documents, the textile sector was leading the export of the country, but now the new sectors including medical and pharma were identified as enhancing the country's exports and remittances. Trade and Commerce statistics indicates that a total 1.3 billion size population size of African countries had a US $ 2.7 trillion Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and the PTI government wanted to double country's trade with increasing foreign export and remittances during the next five years. Pakistan Migration Report 2020 published by Centre on Migration, Remittances and Diaspora (CIMRAD) suggested the government's role to increase capital by availing emerging opportunities of employment in countries such as Malaysia and Japan and UK. According to the report, the expected volume of the remittances to Pakistan in 2020 would be reaching between US $ 22.8 billion and US $ 23.3 billion, while in 2021 the remittances volume was expected to amount between US $ 23.9 billion to US $ 24.4 billion. Some important recommendations of the report were the strengthening of the efforts to increase remittances by enhancing the skill levels of Pakistan's labour force.

The Pakistan Migration Report 2020 analyses that the overseas migration from Pakistan and the resulting remittances have a significant impact on the economy of the country especially on employment and labour market, the report added. This report identified the specific areas to highlight the measures to improve governance of employment abroad and remittances to achieve maximum development impact.

Commenting on this report former joint director Pakistan Institute of Development Studies (PIDE) Dr GM Arif an eminent scholar on migration in Pakistan has stressed the need to solve the issues of lack of coordination between various public and private institutions and stakeholders in foreign employment related policy-making and the implementation process. The SBP's first quarterly report mentioned that the government and the central bank took various measures to support the inflow of remittances into Pakistan. According to Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development official sources, a process was underway with the Qatar government, according to which an estimated 100,000 Pakistani labour and skilled force would be employed there. It is worth mentioning here that following the Prime Minister Imran Khan's suggestion, Saudi Arabia had already agreed to reduce the visa fee for Pakistani workers.