According to a Business Recorder news item, "the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet has been informed that major challenges for Pakistani workers in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are policy of localisation and imposition of taxes on expatriates and their families as well as reduction in the number of projects."

The GCC region is in fact not in dire need of unskilled labour for quite some time. Although Pakistan labourers are among the most hard working people in the world, a large number of them lack the required high skills. Our successive governments have done little or nothing in this regard so far. Almost all the GCC countries have initiated workforce localisation programme, with a view to correcting the demographic imbalances in particular. Our government is therefore required to work towards exporting highly 'value-added' workers to these countries.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019