LAHORE :Pakistan-China Joint Chambers of Commerce and Industry (PCJCCI) President Wang Zihai said on Wednesday that China’s decision to relocate part of its manufacturing sector to cost-effective locations should help Pakistan if the country could chalk out a strategy and train its labour according to the industry’s needs.
Chairing a think-tank session held here at PCJCCI premises, he added that China was witnessing an economic transformation, following Europe’s model of relocating parts of its manufacturing sector to economically viable places that offer skilled labour at cheap rates.
PCJCCI Senior Vice President Ehsan Choudhry said that technical training should be provided to labourers so that they could take advantage of China’s move. Pakistan could make its unemployed manpower effective in the current scenario by providing technical and factual training in industry-related work ambit.
He was confident that Pakistan could attract the Chinese manufacturing sector by developing a trained workforce for industries. He termed the phenomenon a great industrial transfer, which had brought in plenty of opportunities. He added that one-third of Chinese manufacturers for textiles, garments, shoes and hats had already moved all, or part, of their production centres outside China.
PCJCCI Vice President Sarfaraz Butt said that around 40 per cent of the major companies had planned to move factories from China to other locations, which included Vietnam, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Philippines. He added that Pakistan had the ninth largest labour force in the world, according to the labour force 2013-2014, clocking in at 57.24 million. Out of this, 3.4 million people were unemployed, while many were employed in areas not relevant to their expertise.
The joint chamber’s secretary general, Salahuddin Hanif, pointed out that export of quality manpower was the main driver in growth of remittances, adding that the country had a 60 per cent economically active population that could increase productivity if their services were properly utilised.
